Introductions: Nigam Shah, Stanford University

Hi Everyone,

I am a Post-doc with the National Center for Bioedical Ontology
(http://bioontology.org) at Stanford, which works to develop
innovative technology and methods that allow scientists to create,
disseminate, and manage biomedical information and knowledge in
machine-processable form. 

My PhD work was focused on developing methods for the representation,
manipulation and conceptual integration of diverse biological data
with prior biological knowledge to facilitate both, interpretation of
data and evaluation of alternative hypotheses (or models). I am
interested in understanding the ability of the Semantic Web to support
such methods.

Regards,
Nigam.

[Detail Background & Interest]

In collaboration with Stephen Racunas, I have developed the HyBrow
(Hypothesis Browser) system as a prototype tool for designing
hypotheses and evaluating them for consistency with existing
knowledge. HyBrow consists of a conceptual framework with the ability
to represent diverse biological information sources, an ontology for
describing biological processes at different levels of detail, a
database to query information in the ontology, and programs to design,
evaluate and revise hypotheses. HyBrow allows the integration of
different types of biological information, such as gene expression
data, gene and protein sequence homologies, as well as data on protein
interactions and modifications for the purpose of evaluating
alternative hypotheses about biological processes. The prototype is
available at http://www.hybrow.org. 

In order to for tools like HyBrow to be widely useful, knowledgebases
[or a semantic web!], which can provide structured descriptions of
biological entities and processes in a consistent and sufficiently
expressive manner is an extant need. I am interested in understanding
the ability of the Semantic Web to support such a need.

Apart from my research work, I have experience managing large scale
microarray data, teaching microarray data analysis techniques to
faculty and students, and have trained in medicine. I am also familiar
with basic concepts and methods in mathematical modeling of biological
systems.

---------------------------------
Nigam Shah
Postdoctoral Fellow, 
Stanford Medical Informatics.
Ph: 650.725.6236
Web: www.stanford.edu/~nigam/
---------------------------------

Received on Friday, 9 December 2005 09:14:43 UTC