Domain-based computational approaches to understand the molecular basis of diseases

Protein domains, or domains, are the evolutionary, structural and functional units of the proteins. Despite the obvious relevance of domains to understanding biological process at the molecular level, most high-throughput experimental data relating molecular information to biological process, including diseases, is only analyzed at the gene or protein level. I will introduce a new approach, the protein domain profiling, to analyze clinical data derived from microarray and other experimental high-throughput technology. I will show how to use this approach to integrate mutational, alternative splicing and other molecular events with protein interaction and gene expression. In addition, I will introduce HPDD, a database of human protein domains available at http://bioinf.umbc.edu/hpdd which provides a unique resource for study of protein domains and human diseases.