Emeritus Distinguished Professor Richard J. Simpson PhD FATSE
LaTrobe University in Melbourne, Australia

Richard Simpson obtained his Ph.D. in biochemistry at Melbourne University and, currently, is Emeritus Distinguished Professor at LaTrobe University in Melbourne. He has made major contributions to the field of analytical protein chemistry and pioneered many classical microsequencing strategies and multi-dimensional HPLC/ PAGE separation tools. As a pioneer in his field, Prof. Simpson has made numerous groundbreaking advances in cytokine biology (IL-6, IL-9, LIF, rEGF, sIL-6:sIL-6R:sgp130 receptor complex). His team increasingly focusses on clinically relevant questions, such as identifying novel diagnostic/ prognostic biomarkers (proteins, fusion gene transcripts, lncRNAs) of colorectal cancer, and therapeutic role of extracellular vesicles (exosomes, midbody remnants). With over 600 publications Prof. Simpson is listed as one of the World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds (2015, Thompson-Reuter), and a Highly Cited Author (top 1% in the field of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology - Clarivate/WoS 2015-2024). He is listed in “Stanford University List of top 1% of World’s most influential scientists” (2022/2023) and he is a ScholarGPS ‘Respected Scholar’ (top 0.05% Scholars Worldwide). He has an h-index of 113 and > 67,000 citations according to Google Scholar and holds 14 patents. Prof. Simpson has written three leading textbooks on proteomics with Cold Spring Harbor Press. Prof. Simpson’s research contributions have garnered him numerous prestigious accolades including AMRAD Pharmacia Medal, Honorary Life Member of ASBMB, named Plenary Lecture ‘Simpson Lecture’ (Australian Proteomics Society), HUPO Distinguished Service Award, and a Centenary Medal conferred by the Australian Government, and a Centenary Medal conferred by the Australian Government "For service to Australian society in research and development. He has played a pivotal role in establishing protein chemistry in Asia-Oceana (Australasian Proteomics Society, HUPO, AOHUPO, and Asia Pacific Protein Society).   

Prof. M. Michael Gromiha
H-index: 63
Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India

M Michael Gromiha is working as a Professor at the Department of Biotechnology, Indian In-stitute of Technology (IIT) Madras, India. His main research interests include protein structure and function, mutational effects and development of bioinformatics databases and tools.  He has published more than 270 research articles, 70 reviews, eight editorials, and three books entitled “Protein Bioinformatics”, “Protein Interactions” and “Protein mutations”. His papers received more than 15,500 citations and his h-index is 63. He has guided 23 PhD students, 10 Post-docs and handled more than 20 national and international projects. He has organized five international confer-ences, chaired scientific sessions and delivered keynote/plenary/invited lectures in more than 200 na-tional and international meetings. He is an Associate Editor of BMC Bioinformatics, Frontiers in Bio-informatics and Bioinformatics Advances, Section Editor of Current Protein and Peptide Science as well as an Editorial board member of Scientific Reports, Biology Direct, Journal of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, Genes and Current Computer Aided Drug Design.  He has received several awards including the Oxford University Press Bioinformatics prize, Okawa Science Foundation Research Grant, Young Scientist Travel awards from ISCB, JSPS, AMBO and ICTP, Best Paper Award at ICIC2011, ICTP Associateship Award, ICMR International Fellowship for Senior Biomedical Scientists, INSA Senior Scientist Award, Best Paper Award in Bioinformatics by the Department of Biotechnology, India, Institute Research and Development Award from IIT Madras, Outstanding Performance Award from Initiative for Parallel Bioinformatics (IPAB), Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan, Tamilnadu Scientist Award (TANSA) from Tamilnadu State Council for Science and Technology, India and ASC Masila Vijaya Award for excellence in research and pubi-cation from Chennai Academy of Sciences. He is ranked as one of the topmost 0.5% of highly cited re-searchers in the world and No.1 Scientist in Bioinformatics in India in 2020. He is an elected Fellow of Indian National Science Academy (FNA) and Academy of Sciences, Chennai.

Speech Title: "Computational Approaches for Understanding Mutational Effects on Protein Structure and Function: Implications to Diseases"

Abstract: Proteins perform several functions in living organisms. These functions are dictated by their structures, which are influenced with contacts between amino acid residues, building blocks of proteins. The substitution of amino acid residues in a protein alters its structure, stability and function, and may lead to diseases (1,2). We have developed comprehensive databases for understanding protein structure and function (3,4), and annotating disease-causing mutations in globular and membrane proteins using experimental data reported in the literature. These databases provide a description of mutants, structural and functional features along with visualization, search, display, and download options. We have systematically analyzed the effect of these mutations at protein level on change in stability, binding affinity and disease-causing. Utilizing the information, we have developed computational methods for predicting the change in binding affinity upon mutation in protein-protein, protein-DNA and protein-carbohydrate complexes (5-7). Further, computational tools have been constructed for identifying the potential driver and passenger mutations at a large scale, which could be used for designing experiments (8-10). The salient features of the results will be discussed.

Dr. Surakameth Mahasirimongol
Director of the Information and Communication Technology Center
Office of the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Public Health