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BRIEF BIOGRAPHY
John N. Weinstein, M.D., Ph.D.
Head, Genomics & Bioinformatics Group, LMP, CCR, National Cancer Institute (retired)
jweinste@mdanderson.org
Dr. Weinstein obtained his B.A. in Biology at Harvard College, then an M.D. and
a Ph.D. in Biophysics at Harvard University. His >200 publications (mostly on new approaches to
the treatment of cancer or AIDS) include 10 as first author in Science.
After an internship and residency in Medicine at Stanford Medical Center, he
joined the National Institutes of Health to study biological membranes and membrane receptors.
In 1975, he moved to the National Cancer Institute (NCI), where he is currently a Senior Research
Investigator in the Laboratory of Molecular Pharmacology and Captain (retired), U.S. Public Health
Service. He is founder and head of the NIH Drug Discovery Interest Group and the NIH Genomics
and Bioinformatics Interest Group, as well as Head of the NCI Bioinformatics, Biostatistics, and
Computational Biology Faculty. He is a member of the NCI Microarray Steering Committee, the NCI
Proteomics Steering Committee, the NCI Systems Biology Steering Committee, and the NIH Systems
Biology Special Interest Group Steering Committee. He has been nominated for the National Medal
of Technology, 2004.
For a number of years, his research focused on the development of novel approaches
to therapy of cancer and AIDS using liposomes, monoclonal antibodies, cytokines, and other
"biologicals." In 1990 he organized and chaired the Gordon Research Conference on Drug Carriers
in Biology and Medicine. Since 1992, he has been applying a mix of genomic, proteomic, bioinformatic,
and computational chemistry tools to the pursuit of new therapeutic strategies for cancer.
Integromics: His research program is 50% experimental, 50% theoretical.
The experimental part centers on mRNA expression profiling (with cDNA microarrays, oligonucleotide chips,
and RT-PCR), proteomic profiling (with 2D-gels and reverse-phase lysate arrays), and DNA profiling (with
SNP chips, array-CGH, SKY, and methylation sequencing) of cancer cells in the NCI drug discovery
program. The bioinformatic and chemoinformatic tools of his research include those of classical
statistics, computer-intensive statistics, neural computing, genetic algorithm, data mining,
computer-aided drug design, and bioinformatic interpretation. The idea is to create, splice
together, and mine large databases of information on the molecular structures, patterns of activity,
and biochemical targets of potential anticancer agents. Included are what he has termed .integromicTM.
studies combining information at the DNA, RNA, protein, functional, and pharmacological levels.
His group also develops professional-grade, freely available bioinformatics software packages
for public use. Included are CIMminer, GoMiner, MatchMiner, MedMiner, AbMiner, and MethMiner.
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