NUS CSI

CSI Seminar - Francesco Ferrari
2019-10-01 07:00 - 08:00 UTC

CSI Research Meeting - 27 Sept
2019-09-27 05:00 - 06:00

CSI Seminar - Susumu Kobayashi
2019-09-19 03:00 - 04:00

Fearless Science Symposium
2019-09-18 00:00 - 09:00

CSI Distinguished Speakers’ Series – Iannis Aifantis
2019-09-17 02:00 - 03:00

NanoString Summit 2019-5th User Group Meeting Singapore
2019-09-17 01:30 - 08:00

RNA Biology Centre Meeting – 16 Sep
2019-09-16 03:00 - 04:00
Meeting Agenda:

Scientific work presentation:
Speaker: Jobichen Chacko
Talk title: Structural and functional studies of DNMT1 to understand its role in DNA methylation

Abstract
DNA methylation is an epigenetic mechanism implicated in transcriptional regulation, genomic imprinting and silencing of repetitive DNA elements. The addition of methyl groups is controlled at several different levels in cells and is carried out by a family of enzymes called DNA methyltransferases (DNMTs). DNMT1 mediates the maintenance of established patterns of DNA methylation. DNMT1 is a multimodular protein composed of a replication foci-targeting domain (RFD), a DNA-binding CXXC domain, a pair of bromo-adjacent homology (BAH) domains and a C-terminal catalytic domain. The structure of DNMT1-DNA complex is already reported and it reveals the binding regions of DNMT1 with DNA. Recent studies have shown that various RNA fragments also bind to DNMT1 to prevent genomic methylation. The pull-down assay using the various domains of DNMT1 showed that the C-terminal region is involved in binding to RNA. We have expressed and purified various fragments from human-DNMT1 in order to gain further insights by elucidating the structure of DNMT1-RNA complex.

Regular Haematology-Oncology Interest Group Combine Meeting - 5 Sep
2019-09-05 08:00 - 09:30
1st Speaker –
“DNA Damage Induces Type I Interferon Related Responses in Diffuse B Cell Lymphoma”
– Dr. Patrick Jayne William from Dr Anand Jeyasekharan’s lab

2nd Speaker –
“Interesting Cases Encountered from our Clinical Myeloid Neoplasm NGS Service’”
– Dr Ben Yan, Consultant from Department of Haematology-Oncology

RNA Club - 5 Sept
2019-09-05 03:00 - 04:00
Speaker: Dr Jonathan GÖKEVenue: NUS, MD6, Level 12 conference room
Time: 11 am
Title: Exploring the complexity of the transcriptome: from a Pan-Cancer analysis of alternative promoters to Nanopore direct RNA-Sequencing of full length RNAs
Host: Dr Polly Chen

Joint SGCC-CSI Gastric Cancer Seminar - 3 Sep 2019
2019-09-03 09:00 - 10:00

CSI Seminar - Chew Guo Liang
2019-08-27 03:00 - 04:00

CSI Seminar - Jan Cools
2019-08-26 03:00 - 04:00

CSI Research Meeting - 23 Aug
2019-08-23 03:00 - 04:00

Seminar - A Complete Cancer Workflow - Isolating Pure Primary Cell Populations
2019-08-22 03:00 - 04:30

[IMRE Seminar] Rapid Discovery, Manufacturing, and Delivery of Bioactive Proteins and Antisense Oligonucleotides
2019-08-08 06:00 - 07:00
Thur, 8 August 2019
2.00pm – 3.00pm

IMRE, Kinesis Building,
Seminar Room 1, Level 5

Rapid discovery, manufacturing, and delivery of bioactive proteins and antisense oligonucleotides
Speaker: Prof. Bradley L. Pentelute, Associate Professor of Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Host : Dr. Kedar Hippalgaonkar, Electronic Materials Department, IMRE
Abstract
Antisense oligonucleotides, proteins and other biopolymers serve as a foundation of modern therapeutics for the treatment of diseases ranging from cancer to diabetes. The discovery, manufacturing, and delivery of these biomolecules into cells is often a challenge and limits rapid translation to the clinic. Here I describe our latest findings on the development of a platform for discovery of peptide drug leads from 100 million-member synthetic libraries. Our best lead compounds efficiently disrupt cancer-specific protein-protein interactions in cells. We also aim to overcome the cytosolic delivery barrier with cell-penetrating peptides, chemical vectors that facilitate cellular permeation and nuclear targeting of antisense cargoes. The properties of these peptide-based materials were positively altered with macrocyclization chemistry, specifically by cysteine arylation. These modifications impart the ability to cross biological barriers, including the blood-brain barrier and plasma membrane, allowing the therapeutic biopolymers to strike their target and correct cellular function. We applied machine learning algorithms to our vast data set on cellular penetration and predicted novel peptide materials to transport into cells large oligonucleotides (6,500 Da) that may treat Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Manufacturing our new cell-penetrating drug leads and oligonucleotides is hindered by the rate at which we synthesize them, which is far slower than Nature’s production pace of seconds. Realizing this, we have built table top machines that that use man-made chemistry to synthesize peptides in minutes and proteins in hours. Our next steps are to layer on reinforcement learning to each of these platforms while introducing them to clinicians, enabling the rapid advancement of innovative medicines into clinical trials.

About the speaker
Bradley L. Pentelute, Associate Professor of Chemistry. He is also an Associate Member, Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, an Extramural Member of the MIT Koch Cancer Institute, and Member, Center for Environmental Health Sciences MIT. He received his undergraduate degree in Psychology and Chemistry from the University of Southern California, and his M.S and Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of Chicago with Prof. Steve Kent. He was a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. R. John Collier at Harvard Medical School, Microbiology.
Click here to register
For further enquiries, please contact Dr Kedar Hippalgaonkar ( kedarh@imre.a-star.edu.sg)

Research Seminar by Li Yan McCurdy, Yale University, USA
2019-08-05 04:00 - 05:00

RNA Biology Centre Meeting - 29 July
2019-07-29 03:00 - 04:00
By Invitation Only
Date: 29 July 2019, Monday
Time: 11am
Venue: MD6, Level 12 Conference Room (#12-02N)

Scientific Presentation:
Speaker: Touati Benoukraf
Title: Building an Asian AML genome reference to improve RNA analysis

Abstract:

A key step in RNAseq analysis is mapping sequenced reads to a genome reference. However, for certain diseases such as Acute Myeloid Leukemia, the human genome reference can be far from the actual patients’ genome of affected cells, due to the numerous structural variants (translocations, insertions, duplications, and deletions). More distant is the actual genome from the reference genome, less specific will be the mapping, and consequently, less accurate will be the final analyses and interpretations. The recent advent of third-generation sequencing (3GS) technologies brings promise for better characterization of genomic aberrations by virtue of having longer reads. Although current applications of 3GS are restricted by their high sequencing error rates and low sequencing throughput, we were able to overcome these limitations, by developing an algorithm that employs split-reads and hard-clipped reads for SV detection, combined to a neural network classifier for true SV enrichment on low-depth 3GS datasets generated by the Oxford Nanopore technology. In simulated data, we demonstrated that our method provides the highest SV detection accuracy (F1 score = 0.91) amongst other long-read SV callers using 12 gigabases (4X) of sequencing data. In patient samples, besides the detection of genomic aberrations, our method also uncovered many normal alternative sequences or alleles which were present in healthy individuals. The low sequencing depth requirements for our method enable the use of Nanopore sequencing for accurate SV characterization and understanding their effects on transcription regulation at a lower sequencing cost, an approach compatible with clinical studies.

Regular Haematology-Oncology Interest Group Combine Meeting - 25 Jul
2019-07-25 08:00 - 09:30
1st Speaker –
“Hematopoietic Stem Cell Integrity is Dependent on Chromosome Structure Maintained by ZNF143”
– Dr. Zhou Qiling from Prof Daniel Tenen’s lab

2nd Speaker –
“Successful Application of the Quadratic Phenotypic Optimisation Platform in a case of Refractory T cell Lymphoma”
– Dr Sanjay, Consultant from Department of Haematology-Oncology

CSI Research Meeting - 19 Jul
2019-07-19 05:00 - 06:00

Research Seminar by Prof Nan-Shan Chang on "Tumor Suppressor WWOX is a Risk Factor for Alzheimer's Disease"
2019-07-19 04:00 - 05:00

MSC-Olink Joint Workshop "Olink to Accelerate Proteomic Discoveries for Precision Medicine"
2019-07-16 04:00 - 05:00

Joint SGCC-CSI Gastric Cancer Seminar - 9 July 2019
2019-07-09 09:00 - 10:00

CSI Research Meeting - 5 Jul
2019-07-05 05:00 - 06:00

Meet-The-Authors Seminar - Dept of Physiology, NUS
2019-06-28 04:00 - 05:00

3rd Peritoneal Surface Malignancy Conference
2019-06-27 00:00 - 2019-06-28 09:00
For enquiries, contact the secretariat at division.of.surgical.oncology@nccs.com.sg

CSI Research Meeting - 21 June
2019-06-21 05:00 - 06:00

CSI Seminar - Michael Beer
2019-06-12 03:00 - 04:00

CSI Research Meeting & Industry Liaison Office Presentation - 7 June
2019-06-07 05:00 - 06:00

CSI Seminar - Joe Yeong
2019-06-06 03:00 - 04:00

CSI Seminar - Daniel Hodson
2019-05-28 06:00 - 07:00
