Gunawan:Thanneer Malai
Chemical and Biological Systems Engineering Laboratory
Thanneer Malai Perumal
4 Engineering Drive 4 Block E5 #B-05
National University of Singapore
Singapore 117576
Tel:+65 6516 7859
I work for Rudiyanto Gunawan at National University of Singapore (NUS).
Education
- 2006, BE (Chem), National Institute of Technology Karanataka, Surathkal.
Awards/Accolades
- 2008-2012, Recipient of Singapore Millennium Foundation (SMF) scholarship
- 2007-2008, NUS Research Scholarship
Research interests
- Robustness Analysis in Systems Biology
Through millennia of evolution, cells have developed intricate networks of signalling, gene regulation, and metabolism to accomplish their myriad functions under significant intrinsic and extrinsic uncertainties. As the knowledge of cellular components and their interactions grows, the understanding of how a cellular behaviour or function is accomplished in large and complex networks becomes non-intuitive, giving motivation to the use of mathematical modeling and systems analysis. On the other hand, advanced technology is creating examples of networks where we do know all the details and that have complexity approaching that of biology. While the components are entirely different, there is striking convergence at the network level of the architecture and the role of protocols, layering, control, and feedback in structuring complex system modularity. Since this apparent network-level evolutionary convergence both within biology and between biology and technology is not accidental, and follows necessarily from the requirements that both biology and technology be efficient, robust, adaptive, and evolvable. And thus analyzing robustness, a systems level property, will help us to understand the cellular networks better.
The focus of our research is in developing novel robustness measures and analysis methodologies for both deterministic and stochastic models of cellular signalling networks. Of particular interest is the development of an effective sensitivity based methodology named Two-Time Molecular Sensitivity (TTMS) analysis complementing the existing Parametric Sensitivity analysis. We have also successfully developed a novel local TTMS analysis for deterministic models and applied to various cellular signalling pathways. In general, TTMS analysis offers dynamical insights on the functional regulation and signal propagation in the cellular network of interest. The results give a molecule-by-molecule account of how a network function or output is accomplished. In practice, the analysis can guide model identification and reduction of cellular systems and suggest experimentally testable hypotheses. In addition, the biological knowledge gained can assist drug discovery efforts in the identification of potential drug targets, the understanding of drug efficacy and specificity, and finally the optimization of drug dosing and timing. The development of this method represents a concrete step towards robustness-based drug design through systems biology.
Key words: Systems Biology, Mathematical model, Sensitivity analysis, Robustness, Systems Oriented Drug Discovery
- Bioremediation of NAPL (Non-Aqueous Phase Liquids)
Journal Articles
- Perumal TM and Gunawan R: Understanding dynamics using sensitivity analysis: caveat and solution. BMC Syst Biol, 5:41, 2011
- Perumal TM, Wu Y, and Gunawan R: Dynamical analysis of cellular networks based on the Green’s function matrix. J. theor Biol, 261:248-259, 2009
Peer reviewed Conference Proceedings
- Perumal TM, Gunawan R. (2011) Impulse Parametric Sensitivity Analysis, In Proceedings of the 18th World Congress - The International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC), Milano, Italy, August 28 - September 2 (Accepted)
- Perumal TM and Gunawan R. (2010) Dynamical Analysis and Model Reduction of Complex Systems, In Proceedings of the 13th Asia Pacific Confederation of Chemical Engineering Congress (APCChE), Taipei, October 5 - 8
- Perumal TM, Gunawan R. (2009) Information-theoretic global robustness analysis of cellular systems: A molecular perturbation approach, In Third International Conference on Foundations of Systems Biology in Engineering (FOSBE), Denver, Colorado, USA, August 9 - 12, PP: 52 - 55
- Perumal TM, Yan W and Gunawan R. (2008) Robustness Analysis of Cellular Systems for In Silico Drug Discovery, In 17th World Congress - The International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC), Seoul, Korea, July 6-11, PP: 12607-12612
Oral and Poster Presentations
- Perumal TM and Gunawan R. (2010) Caveats of Parametric Sensitivity Analysis (PSA): In analyzing the dynamics of biological systems. In AIChE Annual Meeting, Salt Lake City, UT, USA, November 7-12
- Perumal TM and Gunawan R. (2010) Dynamical Model Reduction of Large Reaction Mechanisms: A Green’s Function Matrix (GFM) Based Approach. In AIChE Annual Meeting, Salt Lake City, UT, USA, 2010, November 7-12
- Perumal TM, Gunawan R. (2010) In analyzing the complex dynamics of biochemical pathways, In Satellite Conference of the International Congress of Mathematics, Hyderabad, India, August 16 - 18
- Perumal TM and Gunawan R. (2009) Information Transfer in Biological Network Motifs, In 10th International Conference on Systems Biology (ICSB), Standford, California, USA, 2009, August 30 - September 4 (poster)
- Perumal TM, Yan W, Gunawan R. (2008) In Silico Dynamical Analysis of Cellular Systems: A Molecular Perturbation Approach, In 12th Annual International Conference on Research in Computational Molecular Biology (RECOMB), Singapore, March 30 - April 2 (poster)
- Perumal TM, Yan W, Gunawan R. (2008) In Silico Molecular Analysis: Application to Fas-Induced Apoptotic Pathway, In 10th International Conference on Molecular Systems Biology (ICMSB), Manila, Philippines, February 25-28 (poster)
- Perumal TM, Yan W, Gunawan R. (2007) In Silico Molecular Analysis: Application to the Fas-induced Apoptotic Pathway, In 8th International Conference on Systems Biology (ICSB), California, USA, October 1-6 (poster)
