Maricel Kann, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Maricel Kann

Office: BS 116
Phone: 410-455-2258
Lab: BS 109
Lab Phone: 410-455-2062
Email: mkann@umbc.edu

Research Group

 

Education

Postdoctorate, National Center for Biotechnology Information, NIH, 2007
Ph.D., University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 2001

Professional Interests

The availability of genomic data derived from hundreds of genome projects has generated a great challenge: to understand the complexity of biological process and to decipher the mechanisms that lead to healthy or diseased organisms. Integration of knowledge and computational tools has been the key to understand the complexity of biological mechanisms. Further progress in this area requires an interdisciplinary effort. My goal is to develop interdisciplinary approaches to understanding protein networks through a combination of computational methods, biological insight, and close collaborations with experimentalists.

My research interests include the development of computational methods for detecting proteins and domains  interactions in large-scale biological data sets. Since complete protein domains are the functional and evolutionary modules of the cell, sequence-based domain recognition methods have become one the most convenient and practical tools to gain insights into protein evolution and to infer protein function.  Predicting the network of interacting domains will also lead to a better understanding of the molecular basis of those protein interactions related with diseases. This will aid the development of drugs to inhibit pathological protein interactions, and the design of novel protein interactions with appropriate domain architectures. My group’s focus is on developing the methodologies and computational resources to derive molecular signatures of prostate and breast cancer.

RECRUITING GRADUATE STUDENTS, IF YOU ARE  INTERESTED IN A PH.D. THESIS ON COMPUTATIONAL BIOLOGY, BIOINFORMATICS, SYSTEMS BIOLOGY AND/OR APPLICATIONS OF THESE AREAS TO UNDERSTANDING HUMAN DISEASES PLEASE DON’T HESITATE TO CONTACT (mkann at umbc dot edu).

Other affiliations:

Affiliate Assistant Professor, Computational Sciences and Engineering Department, UMBC

Memberships:

Advisory board member, PubMedCentral National Committee, National Institutes of Health (2009-2013)

American Association for the Advancement of Science

American Medical Informatics Association

Associate Editor, Journal of Biomedical Informatics (2012-now) (http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaleditorialboard.cws_home/622857/editorialboard)

Editorial Board Member, Journal of Biomedical Informatics (2009-2011) (http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaleditorialboard.cws_home/622857/editorialboard)

Editorial Board Member, In Silico Biology ( http://www.iospress.nl/loadtop/load.php?isbn=13866338 )

University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Diversity Council

University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Chemistry and Biology Interface Program (http://www.umbc.edu/chem/grads/cbi.html)

The University of Maryland Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Cancer Center (http://www.umgcc.org/)

University of Maryland School of Medicine Program in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (http://biochemistry.umaryland.edu/)

Scientific Advisory board member, UniProt (2011-2013) (http://www.uniprot.org/help/sab)

Conference Organizer, Translational Bioinformatics Conference;(November, 2011 and October 2012) (http://www.snubi.org/TBC2012/)

Conference Organizer, Brazilian Symposium on Bioinformatics;(August 2012) (http://bsb2012.facom.ufms.br/ )

Conference Scientific Program Committee, RECOMB Conference on Regulatory and Systems Genomics;(2011 and 2012) ( http://recomb-2012.c2b2.columbia.edu/ )

Publications

Complete list of publications can be found at:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/myncbi/maricel.kann.1/collections/48723285/public/

and

http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Maricel_Kann/publications

Awards

The NCI Transition Career Development Award (K22)
2009-2012
NIH/NCI
NIH Intramural Research Training Award.
2002-2007
NCBI/NIH
NIH Fellows Award for Research Excellence.
2003
NIH
Annual competition in recognition for the outstanding scientific research performed by intramural postdoctoral fellows.
Susan Lipschutz Award for Women Graduate Students
1999
The University of Michigan
Two awards of $5000 given to students with exceptional scholarly achievement, a sense of social responsibility and an interest in the academic community (only one student per department could be nominated).
Sloan Foundation Summer Graduate Fellowship.
1998
Sloan Foundation
Graduate Fellowship of the Organization of the American States
1996-1198
OAS
Two-year full scholarship ($90,000).

Funding

R01LM009722 (Mooney, PI)
NLM, NIH
Role: collaborator
10/1/2007-09/31/2011
1K22CA143148 (Kann, PI)
NCI, NIH
Role: PI
10/01/2009-09/31/2012

Courses Taught

BIOL 495: Seminar in Bioinformatics