Integrative Biomedical Informatics
Ferran Sanz
Group website
Research Outline
The huge wealth of biomedical information that is currently available is underused because of the difficulties in seeking, integrating and analyzing the relevant information. There is also a great difficulty for the identification and exploitation of clinically actionable information. The main goal of this group is to develop computational approaches that enables a better understanding of disease mechanisms and the mode of action of drugs using integrative approaches. We approach this challenge from different perspectives:
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Systems medicine, including data mining and network modelling approaches, to identify disease patterns from scientific evidence and Real World Data with a particular focus in the study of comorbidities.
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Systems toxicology approaches to propose molecular mechanisms underlying the toxicity of drugs and other chemicals.
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Text mining to identify relevant information from textual data, including scientific publications, clinical records and social media.
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Knowledge management resources in the areas of disease genomics and pharmaceutical R&D.
Current Projects
The group is currently coordinating a large-scale scientific initiative, the IMI project eTRANSAFE: Enhancing Translational Safety Assessment through Integrative Knowledge Management. GA 777365. Period: 01/09/2017 to 31/08/2022. Group funding: 3.312.750 €. UPF funding: 1,504,500 €. This project aims to develop an advanced data integration infrastructure together with innovative computational methods to support the drug safety assessment in pharmaceutical R&D;
The group is also partner in other european and national funded projects:
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EU-ToxRisk: An Integrated EUropean ‘Flagship’ Program Driving Mechanism-based Toxicity Testing and Risk Assessment for the 21st Century. EU H2020.GA 681002. Period: 01/01/2016 to 31/12/2021. UPF funding: 723,190 €.
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ELIXIR-CONVERGE. EU H2020. GA 871075. Period: 01/02/2020 to 31/01/2023. EU H2020. UPF funding: 30,658 €.
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Implementación de métodos computacionales en el protocolo de seguridad toxicológica. Period: Research contract with INDITEX. 01/04/2019 to 31/03/2021. Funding: 416,000 €.
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Plataforma de Recursos Biomoleculares y Bioinformáticos - Instituto Nacional de Bioinformática; ISCIII. PT17/0009/0014. Period 1/1/2018 to 31/12/2020; UPF funding: 150,975 €.
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VEIS: Valorització d'EGA per a la Industria i la Societat. AGAUR RIS3CAT Emergents. 001-P-001647. Period 01/01/2019 to 31/12/2022. UPF funding 181,964 €.
Team during 2019-20
PhD students: Mariona Torrens
Postdocs: Juan Manuel Ramírez
Technicians: Miguel Ángel Sánchez, Lluís Domínguez, Vicent Monsonís
Senior scientist: Jordi Quintana, Laura Furlong
Selected publications
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Rodríguez-Espigares I, Torrens-Fontanals M, Tiemann JKS et al (including Selent J, Sanz F, de Fabritiis G). GPCRmd uncovers the dynamics of the 3D-GPCRome. Nat Methods, 2020; 17(8): 777-787. DOI 10.1038/s41592-020-0884-y. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41592-020-0884-y?proof=t.
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Piñero J, Ramírez-Anguita JM, Saüch-Pitarch J, Ronzano F, Centeno E, Sanz F, Furlong LI. The DisGeNET knowledge platform for disease genomics: 2019 update. Nucleic Acids Res, 2020; 48 (D1): D845-D855. DOI 10.1093/nar/gkz1021. https://academic.oup.com/nar/article/48/D1/D845/5611674.
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Aarestrup FM , Albeyatti A, Van Oyen H et al (including Sanz F). Towards a European health research and innovation cloud (HRIC). Genome Medicine, 2020; 12: 18y. DOI 10.1186/s13073-020-0713-z. https://genomemedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13073-020-0713-z.
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Leis A, Ronzano F, Mayer MA, Furlong LI, Sanz F. Evaluating Behavioral and Linguistic Changes During Drug Treatment for Depression Using Tweets in Spanish: Pairwise Comparison Study. J Med Internet Res, 2020; 22(12):e20920. DOI 10.2196/20920. https://www.jmir.org/2020/12/e20920.
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Giannoula A, Centeno E, Mayer MA, Sanz F, Furlong LI. Bioinformatics. A system-level analysis of patient disease trajectories based on clinical, phenotypic and molecular similarities. 2020 Nov 13:btaa964. doi: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btaa964. Online ahead of print. https://academic.oup.com/bioinformatics/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/bioinformatics/btaa964/5981126
Other relevant information
Setup of the MedBioinformatics spin-off company.