I have a great interest in genome-scale data mining: I developed the database of domain-centric ontologies to aid in functional genomics and phenotype prediction; applied network techniques to identify the possible connections among drugs, diseases and phenotypes; used the tree of life to study network evolution. I have also published several papers about transcriptome data mining which is unique in topology-preserving selection and clustering.

I am a trained biologist-turned-computational-scientist. I hold a BSc in Biology, an MSc with Distinction in Environmental Biology, an MSc with Distinction in Evolutionary and Adaptive Systems and a PhD in Neuroscience. After I finished my PhD, I worked for 4 years as a postdoc in the Computational Biology and Bioimaging Group at the University of Warwick and then I moved to the Computational Genomics Group at the University of Bristol. Before I joined Julian Gough's group, my work focused on developing data-driven, biologically plausible computational models of neurons and neural networks. At my present post, I develop statistical methods for clustering high-dimensional, high-volume gene expression data. The driving force underlying my work has always been a keen interest in applying computational methodologies for modelling and data analysis in the Life Sciences.

My PhD focusses on finding remote homology within cell signalling pathways across the Eukaryotic tree of life. Specifically investigating how function of signalling pathways may be preserved through disordered protein interactions and PPI network rewiring, facilitating modular domain rearrangement and repurposing.

The main focus of my PhD is on predicting the functional consequences of genetic variation (single base-pair mutations as well as gross insertions and deletions) and the molecular mechanisms of human disease/cancer.

Ralph did his PhD in the group using computational methods to investigate the ways in which new families of protein domains evolve. Ralph also developed TreeVector - Integrated Phylogenetic Trees Using SVG. Ralph completed in 2011 and after graduating Ralph moved to Google and worked as a product manager.

Martin first started work in bioinformatics working as a summer student at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular biology in Cambridge doing the work with Julian on comparing hidden Markov model methods that was later published during his PhD which he went on to do in the same lab. After graduating Martin did a post-doc at UCSC with Kevin Karplus before joining the group here in Bristol where he published PRC the profile comparer for hidden Markov models.