[Apologies for multiple postings]

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*    GRAND Seminar
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*    http://cs.gmu.edu/~robotics/Main/GrandSeminar
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*Title*
The Role of Cheminformatics in Modern Drug Discovery


*Time/Venue*
CS conference room, ENGR 4201
Noon, October 04, Tue.

*Speaker*

Simon Wang
Assistant Professor
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
silico techniques 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.


*Short 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).

-- 
*Jyh-Ming Lien*
Assistant Professor, George Mason University
+1-703-993-9546
http://cs.gmu.edu/~jmlien