| Start Date: | 5/9/2014 | Start Time: | 11:30 AM |
| End Date: | 5/9/2014 | End Time: | 1:00 PM |
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Event Description
Speaker: Dr. James Brown, GlaxoSmithKline
Friday, May 9, 2014 at 11:30 a.m.
Hill Conference Room, 2nd Floor LeBow Engineering Center
Abstract
Traditionally, infectious pathogens and chronic diseases, such as obesity and diabetes, have been separate research disciplines. However, recent advances in genomics and bioinformatics are rapidly opening a deeper dialogue between these fields. The human body supports dynamic and complex ecosystems of microorganism known as the microbiome. The human gut alone has more than 1000 different bacterial species with a cell count ten-fold greater than all cells in a human being. Understanding the diversity of the microbiome in human populations and its role in human health could provide new therapeutic paradigms for many chronic diseases. Conversely, high throughput genomics platforms are providing new insights into the interplay between human and pathogen genes during infection – the so-called host-pathogen interactome. Exploiting the interactome for novel human drug targets could potentially provide new therapeutic avenues towards the treatment of infectious disease that can ameliorate the growing clinical challenge of drug resistant infections. Given the growth of multiple and complex data types, computational biology has a central role in translating both the microbiome and interactome from basic science into clinical therapies.
Bio
Dr. James (Jim) Brown is presently Director, Computational Biology Therapeutic Area Contact for Infectious Diseases in GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and is based in Collegeville, Pennsylvania. He has over 17 years experience in providing bioinformatics support to the discovery and development of small molecules, biologicals, vaccines and diagnostics primarily in the therapeutic areas of infectious disease and cancer. He is also heads the Microbiome Matrix Team, which coordinates microbiome research throughout the GSK R&D organization.
Prior to joining GSK, Jim was a Medical Research Council of Canada post-doctoral fellow at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada. He has M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada in marine ecology and molecular population genetics, respectively, and has a B.Sc. Marine Biology from McGill University. He has authored over 90 publications and given numerous conference presentations. His drug discovery research interests include bioinformatics, molecular evolution, host-pathogen interactions, infectious disease and the microbiome.
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Location:
Hill Conference Room, 2nd floor Lebow Engineering Center |
Audience:
AlumniCurrent StudentsFacultyStaffGraduate Students |
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