Babru Samal obtained his Ph.D. in Cellular and Molecular Biology from the University of Southern California in 1977. After post doctoral training at Baylor College of Medicine and Princeton University he joined Amgen in 1981 where he worked in the area of cytokine research and novel gene discovery until the end of 1999. He joined Neuralstem Inc as the Principal Scientist in 2000 and later NIMH as Bioinformatics Specialist.
He has fifteen years of experience in analysis of gene expression profile from high throughput data from microarray followed by system biology analysis including gene regulation network and more than 10 years experience in genomic and transcriptomic sequence analysis and designing synthetic genes or adaptors for heterologous expression for functional genomics. He has more than 15 years experience in project management for therapeutic drug development using cloning, expression and gene transfer technologies.
His areas of expertise are big biological data analysis, data integration and database design, sequence assembly and manipulation, project management and expression cloning and gene transfer.
Ansuman Chattopadhyay has PhD in Biochemistry with extensive experience in signal transduction research using molecular biology approaches. He is currently working as Head, Molecular Biology Information Service at the Health Sciences LibrarySystem, University of Pittsburgh, where he has developed an information service program focused on the fields of Molecular Biology and Genetics. He offers hands on workshops in the use of molecular biology software and databases, provides consultation to research teams for questions related to bioinformatics resources, developed and maintains a web-based portal for molecular biology information. Dr. Chattopadhyay previously held positions in the Department of Biochemistry at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine at Nashville, TN and Cellomics Inc., at Pittsburgh, PA.
James Breitfeller (Retired Scientist with Eastman Kodak in their Analytical Technology Division)Mr. Breitfeller spent his career (25yrs) developing new analytical procedures for Surface Science, Life Science and other analytical techniques including GC, HPLC, Surface Energy and Surface Topography for the different Scientific Divisions with in Kodak. In the late 1980’s He and his colleagues developed a microorganism that produced lysine and the process was eventually sold to ADM for animal feed stock. He was one of the instrumental players in getting his division ISO-9002 certified. He holds a number of patents related to bioscience and surface chemistry. His career was cut short when he developed Melanoma in 2005. Today he authors a website for melanoma patients and oncologists a like. The research in his site that he compiles is seen in 141 countries around the world. He is in constant contact with expert oncologists and translation scientists in the melanoma field to bring the research to forefront. As a cancer patient, he was one of the first to try the Anti-CTLA-4 antibodies that was just FDA approved in March, 2011. He has a theory, that his Combinatory Therapy, acting on the T-cells has jump-started his immune system to recognize cancer.
Vivek Mittal, Ph.D. (Assistant Professor, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)We apply functional genomic approaches such as genome-wide transcription profiling and RNAi- mediated gene silencing to mouse models to dissect cellular pathways in cancer. We determine at the molecular and genetic level the mechanisms by which endothelial cells (ECs) neovascularize a tumor to support its continuous growth and metastasis.
Jake Y Chen, Ph.D. (Associate Professor at Indiana University School of Informatics and Purdue University Department of Computer and Information Science in Indianapolis (IUPUI))Dr. Chen is an associate professor at Indiana University School of Informatics and Purdue University Department of Computer and Information Science in Indianapolis (IUPUI). He is the founding director of the Indiana Center for Systems Biology and Personalized Medicine and the Central Indiana chapter chair of the IEEE Engineering in Biology and Medicine Society. He has been active in translational bioinformatics research and development in the past 16 years, including six years of work experience in the biotech industry and experience in cofounding several high-tech startup companies. His scientific expertise spans widely over biological data management, biological data mining, bioinformatics, systems biology, and clinical applications of genomic medicine. He has co-authored more than 90 research publication—including three edited books, Biological Database Modeling, Biological Data Mining, and Translational Bioinformatics (forthcoming)—and has given more than 100 invited talks worldwide. He also helped organize over 100 Academic Biocomputing conferences, regularly served on grant review panels for NIH, NSF, and DOE, and recently served as an information technology expert on the National Academies’ Institute of Medicine committee on strengthening core strengths of food and drug regulatory systems in developing countries. He holds masters and doctoral degrees in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Minnesota and a bachelor degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Peking University of China.
