Prashant Srivastava

Biography

The primary focus of my research for past 8 years has been to understand the transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation of gene-expression. I have developed frameworks for integrating epigenetic changes with gene-expression. My present work applies system genetics approaches to the discovery of disease pathways and their master regulation. Briefly, my work integrates genome-wide information relating to genetic and epigenetic variation with the gene expression data (using RNA-Seq) and phenotypes to map molecular mechanisms of disease. In my current work with Drs Johnson and Petretto, funded by UCB Pharma, I characterised differentially co-expressed gene networks between healthy and epileptic brain and mapped the genetic regulation for these dysregulated networks. Using integrative approaches, I prioritized gene network that were enriched for neuroinflammatory pathways as having a causal relationship to epilepsy, and using logical reasoning approaches we identified regulators of a key pathway leading directly to a potential new drug discovery in epilepsy. Although, this project is specific for epilepsy, the modelling approaches involved can be generalised to any biological system including more widely for disorders of the human brain.

Research Interest

Bioinformatics