Laboratory of Bioinformatics

1. Members

2. Objectives

We carry out bioinformatics and computational biology research to assist drug discovery and development. Our work aims to provide a systems view of how genes and proteins interact with each other and perform their functions in a specific biological pathway, and of how they can be perturbed by therapeutic agents.

3. Research

I. Methods development for improved efficacy and safety

• Integrated databases for genes, proteins and chemical compounds.
• Network-based prioritization of candidate genes/proteins.
• Resources for biomarker discovery and toxicity prediction.
• Prediction of protein structure, function and interaction.

II. Applications to specific systems

Analysis of experimental data in areas including infectious diseases, cancer, vaccine development, neurological disorders, chronic inflammatory diseases and membrane proteins.

4. Applications

In specific drug discovery projects, our predictions have been verified experimentally and led to new therapeutic strategies. Some of our databases and software tools have been commercialized and used widely to characterize drug targets and related proteins.

References

1. Tsuchiya Y, et al. Ligand-induced Ordering of the C-terminal Tail Primes STING for Phosphorylation by TBK1. EBioMedicine, 9:87-96, 2016.
2. Chen YA, et al. Integrated pathway clusters with coherent biological themes for target prioritisation. PLoS One, 9:e99030 , 2014.
3. Yoshimaru T, et al. Targeting BIG3-PHB2 interaction to overcome tamoxifen resistance in breast cancer cells. Nat Commun, 4:2443, 2013.
4. Nystrom-Persson J, Igarashi Y, Ito M, Morita M, Nakatsu N, Yamada H, Mizuguchi K. Toxygates: interactive toxicity analysis on a hybrid microarray and linked data platform. Bioinformatics, 29:3080-3086, 2013.

Laboratory of Bioinformatics