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Data-Driven Drug Discovery and Molecular Informatics

Professor of Molecular Informatics

Currently also: Chief Informatics and Technology Officer (CITO) at Pangea Botanica, London/UK and Berlin/Germany

Previous positions:

Director Digital Chemistry at NUVISAN Berlin

Associate Director Computational ADME and Safety (Clinical Pharmacology & Safety Sciences/Data Science and Artificial Intelligence - CPSS/DSAI) at AstraZeneca Cambridge

Co-founder of Healx Ltd.

Co-founder of PharmEnable Ltd.

Personal Website

  • Committed to developing new life science data analysis methods (AI/ML/data science) and their application, primarily related to chemical biology, drug discovery and in silico toxicology
  • Expertise comprises data ranging from chemical structure and gene expression data to phenotypic readouts and preclinical information, applied to both efficacy- and safety/tox-related questions
  • Collaborating with academic research groups, as well as  pharmaceutical, chemical, and consumer goods companies (Eli Lilly, AstraZeneca, GSK, BASF, Johnson&Johnson/Janssen, Unilever, ...)
  • Co-founder/founding CTO and current SAB member of Healx Ltd. (data-driven drug repurposing for rare diseases, and beyond); co-founder of PharmEnable Ltd.; SAB member of Lhasa Ltd. (toxicology and metabolism prediction) and Cresset Ltd.
  • Coordinator of the Computational & In Silico Toxicology Specialty Section of the British Toxicology Society (BTS)
  • Steering Committee Member of the Cambridge Alliance on Medicines Safety (CAMS)
  • Currently leading a group of ca. 15 PhD students, postdocs, project students and visitors at the Centre for Molecular Informatics at the University of Cambridge, https://www-cmi.ch.cam.ac.uk/centre-molecular-informatics

Publications

In silico approaches in organ toxicity hazard assessment: current status and future needs in predicting liver toxicity.
A Bassan, VM Alves, A Amberg, LT Anger, S Auerbach, L Beilke, A Bender, MTD Cronin, KP Cross, J-H Hsieh, N Greene, R Kemper, MT Kim, M Mumtaz, T Noeske, M Pavan, J Pletz, DP Russo, Y Sabnis, M Schaefer, DT Szabo, J-P Valentin, J Wichard, D Williams, D Woolley, C Zwickl, GJ Myatt
– Comput Toxicol
(2021)
20,
100187
Prediction and identification of synergistic compound combinations against pancreatic cancer cells
Y KalantarMotamedi, RJ Choi, S-B Koh, JL Bramhall, T-P Fan, A Bender
– iScience
(2021)
24,
103080
Probabilistic Random Forest improves bioactivity predictions close to the classification threshold by taking into account experimental uncertainty.
LH Mervin, M-A Trapotsi, AM Afzal, IP Barrett, A Bender, O Engkvist
– Journal of Cheminformatics
(2021)
13,
62
Computational drug repositioning for ischemic stroke: Neuroprotective drug discovery
Y Li, J Yang, Y Zhang, Q Meng, A Bender, X Chen
– Future Med Chem
(2021)
13,
1271
Transcriptional drug repositioning and cheminformatics approach for differentiation therapy of leukaemia cells
Y KalantarMotamedi, F Ejeian, F Sabouhi, L Bahmani, AS Nejati, AM Bhagwat, AM Ahadi, AP Tafreshi, MH Nasr-Esfahani, A Bender
– Scientific reports
(2021)
11,
12537
DOP07 Ulcerative Colitis associated single nucleotide polymorphisms found in transcription factor binding sites effect key pathogenesis pathways and facilitate patient stratification
D Modos, J Brooks-Warburton, P Sudhakar, M Madgwick, D Fazekas, M Szalay-Beko, JP Thomas, B Verstockt, A Watson, M Tremelling, M Parkes, S Vermeire, A Bender, SR Carding, T Korcsmaros
– Journal of Crohn's and Colitis
(2021)
15,
s045
Comparison of structure- and ligand-based scoring functions for deep generative models: a GPCR case study.
M Thomas, RT Smith, NM O'Boyle, C de Graaf, A Bender
– Journal of Cheminformatics
(2021)
13,
39
Comparison of Chemical Structure and Cell Morphology Information for Multitask Bioactivity Predictions
M-A Trapotsi, LH Mervin, AM Afzal, N Sturm, O Engkvist, IP Barrett, A Bender
– J Chem Inf Model
(2021)
61,
1444
Structure-based identification of dual ligands at the A2AR and PDE10A with anti-proliferative effects in lung cancer cell-lines.
L Kalash, I Winfield, D Safitri, M Bermudez, S Carvalho, R Glen, G Ladds, A Bender
– Journal of Cheminformatics
(2021)
13,
17
Combination of Ginsenosides Rb2 and Rg3 Promotes Angiogenic Phenotype of Human Endothelial Cells via PI3K/Akt and MAPK/ERK Pathways.
RJ Choi, SZ Mohamad Zobir, B Alexander-Dann, N Sharma, MKL Ma, BYH Lam, GSH Yeo, W Zhang, T-P Fan, A Bender
– Front Pharmacol
(2021)
12,
618773
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Research Interest Groups

Telephone number

01223 762983

Email address