The availability of genomic data derived from hundreds of genome projects has generated a great challenge: to understand the complexity of biological process and to decipher the mechanisms that lead to healthy or diseased organisms. Integration of knowledge and computational tools has been the key to understand the complexity of biological mechanisms. Further progress in this area requires an interdisciplinary effort. My goal is to develop interdisciplinary approaches to understanding protein networks through a combination of computational methods, biological insight, and close collaborations with experimentalists.
My research interests include the development of computational methods for detecting proteins and domains interactions in large-scale biological data sets. Since complete protein domains are the functional and evolutionary modules of the cell, sequence-based domain recognition methods have become one the most convenient and practical tools to gain insights into protein evolution and to infer protein function. Predicting the network of interacting domains will also lead to a better understanding of the molecular basis of those protein interactions related with diseases. This will aid the development of drugs to inhibit pathological protein interactions, and the design of novel protein interactions with appropriate domain architectures. My group's focus is on developing the methodologies and computational resources to derive molecular signatures of prostate and breast cancer.
RECRUITING GRADUATE STUDENTS, IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN A PH.D. THESIS ON COMPUTATIONAL BIOLOGY, BIOINFORMATICS, SYSTEMS BIOLOGY AND/OR APPLICATIONS OF THESE AREAS TO UNDERSTANDING HUMAN DISEASES PLEASE DON'T HESITATE TO CONTACT (mkann at umbc dot edu).
Other affiliations:
Affiliate Assistant Professor, Computational Sciences and Engineering Department, UMBC
Memberships:
Advisory board member, PubMedCentral National Committee, National Institutes of Health (2009-2013)
American Association for the Advancement of Science
American Medical Informatics Association
Associate Editor, Journal of Biomedical Informatics (2012-now) (http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaleditorialboard.cws_home/622857/editorialboard)
Editorial Board Member, Journal of Biomedical Informatics (2009-2011) (http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaleditorialboard.cws_home/622857/editorialboard)
Editorial Board Member, In Silico Biology ( http://www.iospress.nl/loadtop/load.php?isbn=13866338 )
University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Diversity Council
University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Chemistry and Biology Interface Program (http://www.umbc.edu/chem/grads/cbi.html)
The University of Maryland Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Cancer Center (http://www.umgcc.org/)
University of Maryland School of Medicine Program in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (http://biochemistry.umaryland.edu/)
Scientific Advisory board member, UniProt (2011-2013) (http://www.uniprot.org/help/sab)
Conference Organizer, Translational Bioinformatics Conference;(November, 2011 and October 2012) (http://www.snubi.org/TBC2012/)
Conference Organizer, Brazilian Symposium on Bioinformatics;(August 2012) ( http://bsb2012.facom.ufms.br/ )
Conference Scientific Program Committee, RECOMB Conference on Regulatory and Systems Genomics;(2011 and 2012) ( http://recomb-2012.c2b2.columbia.edu/ )