Research profile Dr. V.A. (Victor) Arturo Bernal.

V.A. (Victor) Arturo Bernal

Improved reconstruction of molecular networks with Gaussian graphical models

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Research description:

Victor Arturo Bernal (2016 - 2020) was involved in the project "Clinical Big Data for Multifactorial Diseases: from Molecular Profiles to Precision Medicine." Diseases with multifactorial origin and complex traits (such as various types of cancer and COPD) are among the leading causes of death in the Western Society.

Current treatment approaches of such complex diseases are often inadequate to find efficient treatment for a large proportion of patients, demanding development of precision medicine approaches and personalized treatment of patients, which are pivotal to improve health and patient care.

Clinical samples obtained at different stage of disease and from different tissue location are accompanied by many clinical parameters (lung function, age, BMI, concentrations of various biomarkers etc.) which are generally collected during patient care. This information combined with molecular profiles of the patients obtained using modern state-of-the-art molecular profiling technology such as genomics, transcriptomics, epigenetics, proteomics and metabolomics open the possibility for personalized or precision patient phenotyping and treatment.

The aim of this project is to develop a machine learning approach based on Bayesian modeling, which is simple to use even for non-expert users and that enables easy adaptation to different study designs, and which approach support personalized and precision medicine. The aimed machine learning approach shall allow to link highly heterogeneous molecular profiles to diverse clinical parameters in order to identify patient subphenotypes, new potential drug targets for patient subgroups, and identify biomarker(s) that predict efficacy of treatment efficiently. The project is highly interdisciplinary and is performed in close collaboration of scientists working in advanced statistics, proteomics, genomics and clinics.

Victor Bernal was born in Caracas Venezuela. He got a bachelor degree in physics at the Universidad Simón Bolívar specializing in general relativity. After completion of his studies in Venezuela, he came to Europe with an Erasmus Mundus scholarship to earn a master degree in mathematical modeling applied to financial problems. He performed further master studies at the Università degli Studi dell'Aquila (Italy), Universität Hamburg (Germany), and Université Nice Sophia Antipolis (France) and performed a master research project in the Biocore team of the French research institute of INRIA (Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique). His master project focused on developing mathematical models for personalized pharmacokinetics. His primary interests include mathematical modeling applied in life sciences, finance and physics.