Professor Natasa Przulj's Research Group
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Genetic sequences have had an enormous impact on our understanding of biology. The expectation is that biological network data will
have a similar impact. However, progress is hindered by a lack of sophisticated graph theoretic tools that will mine these large networked
datasets.
In recent breakthrough work at the boundary of computer science and biology supported by a USA NSF CAREER award, Dr. Przulj developed
sensitive network analysis, comparison and embedding tools which demonstrated that protein-protein interaction networks of eukaryotes
are best modeled by geometric graphs. Also, they established phenotypically validated, unprecedented link between network topology and
biological function and disease. This project will substantially extend these preliminary results and design sensitive and robust network
alignment methods that will lead to uncovering unknown biology and evolutionary relationships. The potential ground-breaking impact of
such network alignment tools could be parallel to the impact the BLAST family of sequence alignment tools that have revolutionized our
understanding of biological systems and therapeutics. Furthermore, the project will develop additional sophisticated graph theoretic
techniques to mine network data and hence complement biological information that can be extracted from sequence. It will exploit
these new techniques for biological applications in collaboration with experimentalists.
Members:
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Professor Natasa Przulj, Group Leader
- Dr. Noel Malod-Dognin, Post-doc, 2012 - present
- Sam Windels, Ph.D. Student, September 2016 - present
- Thomas Gaudelet Ph.D. Student, September 2016 - present
- Vladimir Gligorijevic, PhD student, December 2013 - February 2016
- Omer Nebil Yaveroglu, post-doc, October 2013 - October 2015
- Joana P. Goncalves, research assistant, April 2012 - December 2012
- Marija Rasajski, post-doc, May 2007 - May 2008
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Alumni:
- Anida Sarajlic, Ph.D., 2015, ERC funded, Imperial College
- Vuk Janjic, Ph.D., 2015, ERC funded, Imperial College
- Omer Yaveroglu, Ph.D., 2014, ERC funded, Imperial College
- Kai Sun, Ph.D., 2014, ERC funded, Imperial College
- Tijana Milenkovic, Ph.D., 2010, UCI
- Oleksii Kuchaiev, Ph.D., 2010, UCI
- Vesna Memisevic, Ph.D., 2010, UCI
- Aleksandar Stevanovic, M.Sc., 2010, UCI
- Hania El Ayoubi, M.Sc., 2007, co-advised with Prof. Derek Corneil, U of Toronto
Press Coverage:
Interview for European Commission Community Research and Development Information Service (CORDIS): Beyond genetics: mining biological networks for new treatments for disease, October 11, 2013
