** Apologies for multiple posting **

Grand Seminar: The Role of Cheminformatics in Modern Drug Discovery

Tuesday, Oct 4, 2011,
12:00-1:00 pm,
Engineering 4201
Simon Wang, Ph.D., Howard University

Abstract

Cheminformatics (also known as chemoinformatics and chemical
informatics) is the application of  informational techniques to a
range of problems in the field of chemistry.  These  in
silicotechniques have played an increasing role in modern drug
discovery and translational sciences in recent years.  The development
of cheminformatics methods and procedures  that  enable  the automatic
identification and extraction of privileged structures is very
important in the context of generating knowledge from High-Throughput
Screening (HTS) data.  In this talk, I am going to introduce our
recent efforts on the methodology development in this area that aims
to improve the  performance of virtual screening, i.e., finding
molecular structures that are similar in their activity to the probe
molecules or even predicting the activities of compounds in a library.
Several successful cases using the cheminformatics technique will be
presented as well.

Speaker's Bio

Simon Wang is currently an Assistant Professor and the Head of the
Laboratory of Cheminfomatics and Drug Design at the Department of
Pharmaceutical Sciences, School of Pharmacy Howard University (HU). He
is also a faculty member for the Georgetown-Howard Universities Center
for Clinical and Translational Science (GHUCTSA) Biomedical
Informatics (BI) component, and an investigator for the District of
Columbia Developmental Center for AIDS Research (DC D-CFAR). Dr. Wang
received his B.S. degree in Pharmacy from Peking University School of
Pharmaceutical Sciences, a M.S. degree in Pharmacology from Peking
Union Medical College, and a Ph.D. degree in Computational Chemistry
from the Department of Chemistry and Quantum Theory Project at the
University of Florida. Prior to his joining the HU in late 2010, Dr.
Wang had postdoctoral training with Dr. Harel Weinstein at Cornell
University and had been a junior faculty at the Eshelman School of
Pharmacy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH).

Thanks,
-Huzefa

PS: Please email me at [log in to unmask], if you would like to meet Simon