Computational and Systems Biology

Neural circuitry in sensory systems, especially auditory neural circuitry Neurophysiology using multichannel recordings, brain slice recordings, auditory evoked potentials How brain circuits change in aging and development How auditory circuits adapt and recover from noise or blast injury Computational models of thalamocortical and auditory circuits.

Neuronal circuits in visual perception and learning Optogenetics Neurotechnology Autism Alzheimer's Disease Stroke

Chemical and systems biology as applied to drug discovery; design, synthesis, and evaluation of small molecule modulators of protein interactions; development and application of high content cell analysis screening platforms.

Environmental and molecular toxicology, genomics, and cytogenetics

Macromolecular sequences and the evolution, structure and function of molecules; databases and computational tools for functional genomics

Lipid metabolism at a biochemical level and in vivo, in the context of metabolic disease, exercise, and responses to diet.

Our lab focuses on acquiring and utilizing high throughput sequencing data (e.g. RNA-seq, ChIP-seq, ATAC-seq) to develop new computational models and biological assays to study genome regulation and human diseases, in particular immune related disorders and cancer. We are now working on the discovery and modeling of the regulatory circuitry of the non-coding genome which is essential for maintaining normal cellular physiology.

We use translationally relevant preclinical animal models of substance use disorder to dissect how the brain responds to acute and chronic drug use. We pair behavioral models with whole-brain imaging of protein signaling and computationally based neural network analysis. These approaches can help us to better understand addiction and develop better treatment options.

Systems biology of host-pathogen interactions; dengue virus; malaria parasites; protein-protein interactions

Drug discovery for retinal degeneration Retinal degeneration is a group of inherited eye diseases including retinitis pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration that impair our vision. Although much has been learned about the molecular basis of these diseases, they are still incurable. To expedite discovery of new drugs for these diseases, our group at Purdue University studies zebrafish retinal-degeneration models. We screen drug libraries on these models using high-throughput visual-behaviour assay. We develop novel statistical and machine-learning tools to analyze the large-scale behavioural data, and to to determine which drugs helped the retinal-degeneration models. We then study how the positive drugs work at molecular, genomics and cell-biology levels.

Dietary controls on the gut microbiome, host-microbe and microbe-microbe metabolic exchange, gut inflammation and enteropathogenesis

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Computational chemistry and biological NMR

Cell signaling and morphogenesis in the leaf epidermis

Evolution of eukaryotic chemodiversity using genomics, network biology, and phylogenetics

Bioinformatics and Biologically Related Disciplines (genomics, nutrition, proteomics, statistical genetics)