What do we do?
The TMRC informatics group is responsible for the data management and analysis of the Translational Medicine Research Collaboration data. We provide basic IT support for the TMRC core lab in collaboration with the University of Dundee High Performance Computing group HPC Group
We have expertise in software and database development, utilising primarily Java, Flex and Oracle technologies and have implemented a range of data management and scientific computing tools available to any member of the TMRC collaboration. We are partnering with the SINAPSE initiative for the development of our image management tools.
The informatics group has deployed OpenClinca, an open source clinical database system. With the groups expertise in clinical data management, this allows us to help to our collaborators in not only the generation of case report forms but we also host the clinical database and provide eCRF forms.
The group has analytical and statistical expertise and has experience in the QC and primary analysis of microarray, proteomics, metabonomics data sets and follow on biological interpretation through pathway and network analysis. The groups main research interests is in network analysis methods for gene expression data.
Meet the Team
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Daniel Crowther, PhD
Head of Informatics
Wyeth Research
Phone: +44 (0) 1382 386351
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Dan Crowther joined the TMRC as the head of Informatics in January 2007. Prior to moving to industry, Dan was based in Oxford where he obtained his Degree in Biochemistry from Exeter College Oxford and completed a D.Phil in yeast molecular biology and short postdoc with Dr Mellor in the Microbiology Department. Prior to joining the TMRC, Dan worked at GlaxoSmithKline and it’s legacy companies for 9 years where he managed a team of computational biologists within the Bioinformatics division. The group provided bioinformatics and computational biology support to the drug discovery process. In addition to the direct project support, the group implemented novel computational analysis methodologies for large scale data sets including data from high throughput genetic screening, microarrays, 2D gel and MS based proteomics.
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Vackar Afzal, BSc
University of Dundee
Vackar Afzal joined the TMRC in August 2007 as a software engineer. He attended Grove Academy and went on to study Physics and Applied Computing at The Univeristy of Dundee. He specialised in Computing during his honours year and graduated in 2007 with first class honours. Prior to joining the TMRC as a software engineer, he had previously worked for SMS-Limited developing custom accounting software packages.
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Timothy Bath, MA, MSc
University of Dundee
Tim is a Programmer/IT Specialist and DBA. Following completion of his M.A. degree at Glasgow University, he completed an M.Sc. in Information Technology at University of Abertay, Dundee. Tim has worked across diverse sectors including Local Government, New Media, Finance and Healthcare. Prior to joining TMRC, Tim led both the Clinical Systems Development and the Software Quality Assurance teams in NHS Tayside's Clinical Technology Centre.
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Petra Rauchhaus, BSc
University of Dundee
Petra Rauchhaus joined the TMRC in June 2007 as Statistical Programmer. After completing a BSc degree in Biotechnology, she worked for 13 years at Asta Medica in Germany in the preclinical drug discovery department, focussing on Asthma and Allergies. 1994 Petra joined the Biostatistical Department at Asta Medica as Statistical Programmer and Data Manager. Petra came to the UK in 2001, where she worked in several Contract Research Organizations as Team Leader Data Management in the data collection and analysis of Clinical Study Data.
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Keith Vass, PhD
University of Dundee
Keith Vass joined TMRC in October 2007 from the Beatson Institute for Cancer Research, where he was Head of Bioinformatics. Keith is the principle analyst in the informatics group responsible for the analysis and interpretation of the data being generated in the core lab. He trained as a Biochemist and gradually moved into computational biology, first with DNA sequence analysis and more recently with microarrays. His undergraduate training was in Aberdeen, then a Ph.D in University of Glasgow, where he stayed for a postdoc before moving to The Beatson Institute. He then moved to MIT, Cambridge, Mass before returning to the Beatson. He was a co-investigator in the Dept of Microbiology, St Georges Hospital, University of London, in a Wellcome Trust funded programme for whole genome microarrays of bacterial pathogens. He has extensively collaborated with the University of Strathclyde, developing new methods of analysing microarrays. Keith is now a Vvisiting Professor in The Department of Mathematics in Strathclyde University.
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Runxuan Zhang, PhD
University of Dundee
Runxuan Zhang is a computational scientist in the Informatics group. He obtained BSc degree from Dalian University of Technology, China where he started research on signal processing techniques for brain related disease diagnosis. He was awarded PhD degree from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore where his research focused on machine learning methods for microarray classifications. Before joining TMRC, he had been on postdoc positions in Systems Biology Group, Institut Pasteur, Paris and Center for Model Organisms Proteome, Univerity of Zurich, Switzerland, where he worked on computational methods for mass spectrometry based high throughput proteomics experiments. His current job responsibilities include microarray analysis using statistical methods, pathway and interaction network analysis, proteomics data analysis, integrating and interpreting high throughput microarray and proteomics experiments and developing novel methods for prediction of biomarkers. Selected Publications
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