At Complex Systems Laboratory, CSIR-IHBT, we have been exploring molecular architecture underlying complex disease phenotypes such as Asthma, Cancers and Diabetes.

My lab is interested in modelling biological complex systems so as to identify ‘essential’ molecules, processes and regulatory motifs that are key to expression of a complex system. We take a rational approach towards modelling plant processes/mechanisms and human disease conditions based on their empirically available data. Our work is rooted in the hypothesis that models of intricate networks of interactions and regulations of molecular mechanisms sufficiently encode necessary information of complex biological processes.

We model specific protein interactomes embodying mechanisms of concern, to further analyze those using graph-theoretical methodologies. Apart from plant processes, we are in the process of establishing rational methods for probing human disease conditions (cancers, asthma and type-II diabetes) starting from construction of their interactomes, to their targets, ultimately to arrive at putative leads using network biology approach. Towards this goal, we screen openly available databases of small molecules.

We are presently focussing on interactomes of cancers, generic mechanisms involved in cancers and construction of a construction of refined methodologies for identification of disease-specific targets.

Vinay Randhawa and Ganesh Bagler*, “Identification of SRC as a potent drug target and its novel leads, for Asthma, using integrative approach of protein interactome analysis and in silico drug discovery”, OMICS: A Journal of Intregrative Biology (In Press; April 2012).