Bioinformatics Faculty and Staff
FACULTY | |
 Guy Brock (B&B) |
My primary research interests are in the areas of statistical genetics, bioinformatics, and genomics. Recent projects include developing methods for nonparametric linkage analysis in extended pedigrees, missing value estimation in microarray data, and cluster validation software. I also have collaborative efforts with Epidemiology and Public Health, Pharmacology and Toxicology, Infectious Disease, and Molecular, Cellular, and Craniofacial Biology. |
 Nigel Cooper (ASNB) | Research interests: neuronal cell death in models of neurodegeneration; development of gene-arrays for death-related genes; signal transduction pathways; custom gene-arrays. |
 Susmita Datta (B&B) |
Research Interests: Bioinformatics, Biostatistics, Statistical issues in Population Biology, Statistical Genetics, Infectious Disease Modeling and Survival Analysis. Also involved in developing statistical methods for analyzing microarray data. Working on the problems of modeling gene expression profiles through partial least squares regression, validation of clustering algorithms for grouping genes and developing various statistical tools for detection of differential gene expression. Also actively interested in proteomic data (MALDI-TOF, SELDI) analysis to understand disease etiology (colon, lung cancer etc.), as well as collaborative research with interdisciplinary scientists from Biochemistry, Biology, Public Health and Computer scientists. |
 Ahmed Desoky (CECS) |
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 Adel Elmaghraby (CECS) |
Research interests: Distributed and interactive simulation; multimedia systems and mm databases; digital libraries; visual interfaces and visual programming environment; intelligent agents; neural systems; applications in logistics, biology, and medicine. |
 Ryan Gill (Math) |
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 Ted Kalbfleisch (CGeMM) |
Dr. Kalbfleisch received his Ph.D. in physical chemistry from Boston University. He served a two-year postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory of Dr. Lawrence Ziegler where he developed computational tools for theoretical investigations involving classical molecular dynamics simulations. In 1996 he joined the bioinformatics group at the Curagen Corporation in New Haven, CT where he designed and implemented the Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS) for the yeast two hybrid process, and systems for high throughput data analysis. At Genaissance Pharmaceuticals he served as Associate Director of Process Software Development and provided oversight and direction for a team responsible for the development of software and support systems for high throughput data generation and analysis. In 2005 Dr. Kalbfleisch joined the staff at the University of Louisville Center for Genetic and Molecular Medicine as Associate Director of Bioinformatics. His work focuses on the analysis and management of research data and the development of computation tools as a foundation for systems biology approaches to biomedical research. |
 Ashok Kumar (ASNB) |
Skeletal muscle wasting/atrophy is a debilitating complication of several conditions including denervation, disuse, immobilization, zero gravity space travel, aging, and several chronic disease states. Our group is interested in identification of novel molecules and understanding their mode of action leading to skeletal muscle loss in various physiological and pathophysiological conditions. We have recently identified TWEAK as a potent muscle-wasting cytokine which induces atrophy in cultured skeletal muscle cells and upon in vivo administration or transgenic skeletal muscle-specific over-expression of TWEAK in mice. Another important area of our research is to understand the pathophysiological mechanisms in Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). We have recently reported that the activation of mitogen-activated protein kinase, nuclear factor-kappa B, and phosphatidylinositol-3 kinase/Akt signaling pathways is drastically upregulated in dystrophin-deficient skeletal muscle of mdx (a model to study DMD) mice in both necrotic and pre-necrotic states. We are interested in determining: 1). How the loss of dystrophin protein leads to the activation of various cell signaling pathways and transcription factors in skeletal muscle tissues; and 2). What role these signaling pathways and transcription factors plays in the pathogenesis of DMD. We are developing novel conditional transgenic/knockout mouse models in which the activation of a specific signaling protein/transcription factor will be blocked specifically in skeletal muscle. Using these genetic mouse models we will determine the role of specific signaling protein/transcription factors in the progression of muscle disease at the molecular, cellular, tissue, and system levels. |
 Jiaxu Li (Math) |
Dr. Jiaxu Li's research interests include ordinary differential equations, delay differential equations, dynamical systems and mathematical biology. Currently, he focuses on the studies of glucose-insulin endocrine metabolic regulatory system, and bioinformatics. His major interests in this area is to investigate how the system works, the pathways to diabetes mellitus, and ultimately to provide more efficient and effective algorithms for the treatments of diabetes mellitus in clinical applications. He also has great interests in other areas of mathematical biology, for examples, ecological models, and molecule models in chemical reaction. In earlier days, his work focused on the qualitative analysis of Lienard equation. |
 Hunter Moseley (Chemistry) |
Research Interests: To develop analyses and computational tools for biological and biophysical data that provide new insight, deeper understanding, and improved quality of interpretation. To develop bioinformatics applications in NMR, structural biology, and molecular biology. |
 Ming Ouyang (CECS) |
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 Jeffrey Petruska (ASNB) |
Dr. Petruska joined the University of Louisville in May, 2008. The theme of the research in the Petruska lab is neural plasticity - changes in neural structure and synaptic communication. Their studies are generally in the context of spinal cord injury (SCI) and of pain, primarily using in vivo rodent models. His work, as part of a collaboration through the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation.s (CDRF) International Consortium on Spinal Cord Injury Research, was some of the first to describe the changes in spinal circuits and single motoneurons (neurons connected to muscles) in response to a model of post-SCI physical therapy. Dr. Petruska has developed novel tools and model systems in order to examine the .what. and .how. of plasticity at every level from molecules to behavior. Using some of those tools, the lab is currently engaged in examining the .molecular profile. of an understudied process of axonal plasticity . collateral sprouting (where non-injured neurons generate new axon branches and make new connections) . which also arose from a CDRF collaboration. This process is responsible for a major portion of the pain-syndromes that occur post-injury, but is also vital for recovery of function. Sorting out the different outcomes from the same process is a goal of the lab. |
 Ken Ramos (BMB) |
Research interests: Dr. Ramos. research is focused on genetic, molecular, and cellular mechanisms of environmental disease with emphasis on transcriptional control, functional genomics and bioinformatics, and cell differentiation. Current efforts emphasize the study of novel co-regulators of redox-activated transcription, gene regulatory networks involved in phenotypic control and pathogenesis, and, genetic basis of normal and disrupted nephrogenesis. This work has implications for understanding the molecular basis of human disease. In studies of gene transcription, experiments are being conducted to evaluate functional interactions between transcription factors, cytoskeletal proteins, and the redox-sensing machinery and their role in regulation of sequence-specific recognition of a DNA elements and assembly of stereo-specific multi-protein complexes on the chromatin template. In related studies, genomic, proteomic and metabolomic technologies are being used to pave the way to a deeper understanding of biological systems and the disruption of their normal functions in atherogenesis and carcinogenesis. His group is using Probabilistic Boolean Networks to understand the generation of ordered patterns and qualitative features in a system constituted by a large number of interacting components. Another area of investigation focuses on the study of Wilms. tumor suppressor gene functions during development and pathogenesis. The interaction of this tumor suppressor with genes involved in cellular differentiation, proliferation, apoptosis, cell cycle progression, stress signaling, matrix remodeling and transcriptional control is under investigation. |
 Eric Rouchka (CECS) |
Research Interests: primer design, microarray analysis, genomic segmentation, contig assembly, sequence assembly validation, location of large scale polymorphic sites, single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) analysis, repeat analysis, genomic evolution, and sequence motif detection. |
 Xiang Zhang (Chemistry) |
We are interested in multidisciplinary life sciences research. Our expectation is that the chemistry of biomolecules in living systems can define disease mechanisms. We would like to tell the biological story revealed by these molecules with advanced bioinformatics methodologies and modern analytical techniques. Our bioanalytical research exploits practical and efficient high-throughput technologies for the analyses of complex mixtures derived from living systems. The bioinformatics research in our group develops informatics system that enables mining of high throughput data for identification of molecular networks and .systems level. knowledge assembly. |
STAFF | |
Alex Cambon |
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I. Elizabeth Cha |
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Ben Harrison |
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Xiaohong Li |
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Siva Panguluri |
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 Maha Soliman (ASNB) |
Research interests: Sequence mining; web mining; scientific data mining; stream mining; fuzzy logic. |
Sabine Waigel |
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Xianping Wang |
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