Overview

I am a bioinformacian with research interests covering sequence/structure bioinformatics and systems biology. In the last few years, my work mainly focused on developing novel algorithms for peptide classification, protein structure/function prediction. In collaborating with Oxford University, a tool called RONN was developed for predicting the disordered regions in proteins, which has been proved the best tool so far for predicting the short disordered regions in proteins. I am a member of the Molecules and cells research group.

Qualifications

1995-1997 PhD, Portsmouth University

Career

2000-2021 Senior lecturer in Bioinformatics, School of Biosciences, Exeter University
2004-2007 Senior lecturer in Computer Sciences, Department of Computer Sciences, Exeter University
2000-2004 Lecturer in Computer Sciences, Department of Computer Sciences, Exeter University
1999-2000 Research fellow, Heriot-Watt University
1997-1999 Research fellow, Southampton University

Links

• Molecular Cell Biology, Biocatalysis and Biochemistry research group

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Research

Research interests

My current research interests are in gene-metabolite network construction, signaling pathway crosstalk modeling and systems dynamics. My main methodology is top-down data mining using various machine learning algorithms and differential as well as difference equations. In theoretical bioinformatics, I am currently working on developing novel neural network algorithms which can handle data complexity as conventional neural networks but provide the capability of quantitative interpretation to a model so that biological relevance in data can be well-explored through black-box-alike learning.

Research networks

• Dr Robert Esnouf, Department of Structural Biology, Oxford University,
• Dr Toby Gibson, European Molecular Biology Laboratory (Germany),
• Prof L Wang, Nanyang Technology University, Singapore

Research grants

• 2007 NERC
  The molecular diversity of microbial eukaryotes using a large-scale parallel tag sequencing strategy, the Linnean Society and Systematics Association

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External Engagement and Impact

Committee/panel activities

Steering committee member of 7th International Conference on Intelligent Data Engineering and Automated Learning, Birmingham, UK, December, 2007. Program committee member of the 3rd International Conference on Natural Computation (ICNC'07) and the 4th International Conference on Fuzzy Systems and Knowledge Discovery (FSKD'07). Program committee member of the 9th International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering, 2007. Steering committee member of 7th International Conference on Intelligent Data Engineering and Automated Learning, Burgos, Spain, September, 2006. Steering committee member of 6th International Conference on Intelligent Data Engineering and Automated Learning, Australia, July, 2005. Program committee member of The Congress on Evolutionary Computation 2005. Program committee member of 6th International Conference on Intelligent Data Engineering and Automated Learning, Australia, July, 2005. Steering committee member of BCS summer school, Exeter, 2004. Program committee member of 5th International Conference on Intelligent Data Engineering and Automated Learning, Exeter, August, 2004. Program committee member of 2004 IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology. Program committee member of The Congress on Evolutionary Computation 2004. Chair sessions in 4th International Conference on Intelligent Data Engineering and Automated Learning, 2003. Chair sessions in IEEE Neural Network Society 9th International Conference on Neural Information Processing, 2002. Chair sessions in IEEE Neural Network Society 8th International Conference on Neural Information Processing, 2001.

Editorial responsibilities

IEEE Trans on Systems, Man and Cybernetics – associate editor

Open Artificial Intelligence – associate editor

Trends in Applied Science Research – associate editor

Invited lectures

Invited talk for the 10th International Congress on Amino Acids and Proteins (ICAAP), August 2007. Keynote speech for the workshopPeptidomics: methods and applications, Royal Holloway, University of London, September, 2005. Predict protein functional sites using pattern recognition methods, Nanyang Technology University, Singapore, November 18, 2004. Bio-basis function neural networks, BCS Summer School, Exeter University, July 2003 A unified method in bioinformatics, Oxford University, March 2003. Bio-basis function neural network, Aberysterwyth University, November 2002. Bio-basis function neural networks for analysing protein sequences, Portsmouth University, September 2002. Protein sequences analysis, Guildhall University, August 2002.

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Teaching

My current taught modules are:
BIOM502 Tools and techniques
BIOM505 Machine learning and informatics
BIOM507 Research methodology
BIOM504 Sequence analysis
COM3507 Bioinformatics (for SECAM)

Modules

2023/24

Information not currently available

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Supervision / Group

Postgraduate researchers

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