Mathematics of life workshop: “Modelling molecular mechanisms: from basic science to drug discovery”

New

Once you have booked a provisional place on this course, you will need to email the organiser Dr Rahuman Sheriff, sheriff AT ebi.ac.uk with your CV and cover-letter explaining why you would like to participate, with “MOL-workshop” in the subject line by 18th September 2019.

Computer models are increasingly used by researchers as well as pharmaceutical industry to investigate molecular mechanisms disease initiation, progression and therapy. Systems modelling of biochemical pathways deregulated in disease condition offers mechanistic insights into the pathology; helps to elucidate mechanisms behind dug action and predict dose required for treatment and thereby greatly facilitates fundamental research and drug discovery. Such modelling requires background in both molecular biology and mathematics.

This workshop will train postdocs from life science and mathematics to communicate and work together to learn to build and analyse computational models using user-friendly open source software. Participant will explore selected computational models from a recent publication, freely available in BioModels repository (www.ebi.ac.uk/biomodels/).

Speakers:

Lourdes Cucurull-Sanchez PhD Director, Quantitative Clinical Pharmacology GSK Medicines Research Centre, Gunnels Wood Road, Stevenage, Hertfordshire, SG1 2NY, UK

Prof. Jasmin Fisher PhD, FRSB Professor of Computational Biology UCL Cancer Institute Faculty of Medical Sciences, Paul O’Gorman Building 72 Huntley Street, London WC1E 6DD

Alfonso Martinez Arias PhD Professor of Developmental Mechanick Department of Genetics University of Cambridge Cambridge CB2 3EH

Tutors:

Rahuman Sheriff PhD, Thawfeek Varusai PhD and Krishna Tiwari EMBL-EBI, Cambridge, UK

The workshop is open to postdocs in Cambridge, including candidates from University and affiliated institutions

Number of sessions: 1

The one-day workshop includes scientific talks from 3 distinguished speakers who will showcase how modelling is useful in fundamental research as well as pharmaceutical industry, a tutorial session on modelling of normal and disease pathways using simulation software, COPASI, and an extended afternoon hands-on training workshop / group project. Prior knowledge on systems biology modelling not essential.

This workshop will expose participants to computational modelling and help them understand its potential application. It will also train them to collaborate, work together in team and learn from each other to perform interdisciplinary research. Thus, it will be helpful to both postdocs aspiring to become an independent researcher as well as those who plan to transit into pharma industry where modelling is applied in drug discovery.

4 hours hands-on training workshop / group project: Participants will form 5 groups, each with two computational and two experimental postdocs and explore computational models to investigate regulatory mechanisms and/or predict the drug targets for interested diseases. All groups will present their results at the end.