Employment Achievements for Chris Southan

 

 

 

May 2008 – July 2009: ELIXIR Database Survey Co-ordinator, EMBL Outstation, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton.

 

  • Integrated own and other expert inputs to develop a comprehensive questionnaire that has captured key metrics, operational and content information from database providers for the European Life sciences Infrastructure for Biological Information (ELIXIR) project (http://www.elixir-europe.org/)
  • Completed analysis of a pilot survey and optimized question set
  • Checked URLs, compiled status listing and mailed survey to over 500 databases in Europe
  • Survey results used for ELIXIR presentations by myself, the EBI Director,  Assistant Director and other Work Package leaders
  • Explored connectivity and map display methods for results
  • Reviewed literature on database sustainability
  • Committee member for Work Package 2, ELIXIR Strategy for Data Resources
  • Extensive report compiled for ELIXIR documentation
  • Inputs to EBI Druggablity Portal and Biomolecular Interaction Standards specification
  • Assessment of geographical distribution of major EBI data types
  • Completed a paper and a book chapter (publications 78 &79)

 

Jan 2006 – Sep 2007: Secondment to Global Compound Science, AZ Mölndal

 

  • Supported development of a major database application of relationships between targets, compounds and assay data by presentations, user documentation and exploitation examples, resulting in 350 global users
  • Provided strategic impact assessment, awareness presentations and exploitation guidelines for PubChem and other external sources of bioactive compound data
  • Successful bioinformatics support for specific computational chemistry projects
  • Key deliveries of gene>pharmacology mappings for internal and external databases
  • Developed global contact network for drug target sequence-to-compound relationships, including managers at GVKBIO, PubChem, and DrugBank
  • Success in cross-disciplinary working  (see pub 77)
  • Four publications and three external presentations (pubs 74-77, presentations 25-27)

 

March 2004 – Dec 2005: Principal Scientist, Target Development & Bioinformatics, AstraZeneca, Mölndal, Sweden.  

 

  • Managed a team of five bioinformaticians and two Masters Students that produced major departmental and global project impacts
  • Provided advanced bioinformatic analysis for the decision support and progression of 16 projects including the Protease Platform
  • Awarded two promotions and Swedish expert tax reduction status in 2004
  • Key inputs to the AZ global Bioinformatics Strategy Steering Group and Target Development & Bioinformatics Section Management Team
  • Lead Working Group that successfully introduced global unrestricted utilisation of external bioinformatics resources
  • Contributed to business case for successful major investment in bioinformatics workflow capability
  • Appointed Special Professor in Proteomics at University of Nottingham
  • Three papers and four external presentations (pubs 71-73, presentations 20-24)

 

Dec 2001 – Jan 2004:  Proteome Discovery Bioinformatician, Oxford GlycoSciences

 

  • Discovery of unknown proteins, splice variants, nsSNPs and other marketing examples from the Protein Atlas of the human genome database.
  • Ran project to review human protein numbers that was presented twice to the Confirmant Scientific Advisory Board and resulted in a major revenue gain for OGS. A review paper (pub.73) and an major international meeting presentation (no.23) were also produced.  
  • Inputs for database rationalisation, cross-species comparisons, functional ontologies, and analysis of unknown proteins provided for major OGS customer projects.
  • Delivered 11 external presentations (nos. 8-19), published four papers and three book chapters (pubs. 66-73)
  • Two Bioinformatics M.Sc. students awarded distinctions and one paper (pub. 71).

 

Jan 2001-Dec 2001:  Head of Computational Biology, Gemini Genomics

 

  • Key results generated from analysis of candidate disease-associated genes.
  • Supervised selection of key gene target classes for coding SNP mining. 
  • Managed a major external project to identify all non-synonymous SNPs providing a key resource for disease-association studies.
  • Valued inputs to Business Development for progressing collaborations.
  • Delivered 7 external presentations and published three papers (pres. 1-7, pubs. 62-64)

 

Oct 1987-Dec 2000: Senior Investigator, Bioinformatics Target Discovery, SmithKline Beecham.  Initially working as a Protein Chemist (1987-1995) then internally recruited into Bioinformatics Target Discovery (1996-2000).

 

  • Analysis of proteomic data discovered novel family of rat secreted Ly6 proteins.
  • Six publications appearing in 2000 (publications 56 – 61).
  • Inventor on over 80 provisional patent filings, 21 published patents, 10 of which have been granted.
  • Project leader for mining novel proteases from EST and genomic data that discovered 170 novel protease and inhibitor sequences, was extended for two years because of its success rate. It spawned several drug target studies including the Alzheimer’s beta-secretase, BACE1 (publication 55). 
  • Managed a team that used robotics and cocktail mixtures to achieve a screening record of 1130 compounds for HPLC peptidolytic viral protease assays.
  • Invented plastic high-speed microbore HPLC columns used in many projects for protein purification (publications 39, 46, 51 and 54).
  • Complete sequence of 2nd novel lipase (NSDL) assembled from EST data confirmed as 98 % correct. Patents filed and drug target study initiated (publication 53).
  • Breakthrough identification of novel LpPLA2 enzyme sequence in Human Genome Sciences EST data. This was highlighted as a major success in being  the first SB genomic target approved for development (publication 52).
  • First introduction to SB of MALDI peptide mass-mapping for identification of drug binding proteins blotted from 2D gels.
  • Operation of ABI 477 protein sequencer for extensive sequencing of  Dopamine beta hydroxylase and elucidation of attachment sites of mechanistic inhibitors (publications 36, 40-42 and 45).
  • Successful co-supervision of four Ph.D. students and two Sandwich students

 

Jan 1986 - Sep 1987: Manger of Cancer Research Campaign UK Protein Sequencing Facility, University College, London

 

  • Manged National facility that successfuly generated sequence information for the identification and cloning of cancer-related proteins provided by many CRC grant-holders. 
  • Develped new methods for the gas-phase sequencer and microbore HPLC that produced significant improvement in the facility’s performance.
  • Trained a Research Technician for peptide mapping.
  • Advised users of the facility for effectvie protein purification prior to sequence determination. 

 

Jan 1984 - Dec 1985 Research Fellow, Coagulation Research, Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School, London.  

 

  • Successful characterisation of genetically abnormal fibrinogens and structural investigations of fibrinolysis.
  • Set up extensive HPLC equipment and transferred expertise to other researchers.
  • Published novel  separations of fibrinogen-derived fragments and analysis of fibrinopeptides  from blood plasma and platelet cell lysates.
  • Supervision of a Research Technician for purification and functional characterisation of over 10 cases of abnormal fibrinogens.
  • Produced six full papers and six book chapters in two years (publications 17-28)

 

May 1979 - Dec 1983: Research Assistant and PhD Student Department of Protein Chemistry, Max-Plank Institute for Biochemistry, Germany.

 

  • Successful structural analysis of genetically abnormal fibrinogens
  • Isolation of abnormal fibrinogen chains lead to first ever discovery of A-α16 Arg->Cys mutation in Fibrinogen Metz (publication 5).
  • Development of a novel isolation technique for fibrinogen from plasma. 
  • Measurement of fibrinopeptide-release kinetics using HPLC.
  • Supervision of a Technician for SDS-PAGE of proteins and peptide chromatography.
  • Three full papers and 12 additional publications (publications 1 – 13 and 15-16).
  • Awarded Grade 2 for Ph.D. thesis “Investigations on Genetically Abnormal Fibrinogens”.

 

Nov 1976 - May 1979: Research Technician, Max-Plank Institute for Molecular Genetics, Berlin, Germany.  involved in purification of ribosomal peptides, amino acid analysis and manual sequencing of peptides.

  • Made technical improvements to thin-layer chromatography spotting procedures.
  • Found final peptide that allowed completion of protein L24.
  • Key identification of cross-linked peptide proved juxtaposition of  ribosomal subunits

 

Feb 1976 - Nov 1976:  Division of Communicable Diseases, M.R.C. Clinical Research Centre, Northwick Park Hospital, Harrow. Technical Assistant for maintaining culture of Chlamydia organisms and infectivity assays in coverslip cell cultures.

  • Maintained key laboratory resources of mammalian cell lines and yolk sac cultures.
  • Responsible for stocks and immunotyping of clinical isolates.