Overview

The Systems Biology and Translational Medicine Laboratory develops novel assays for clinical diagnostics and uses a systems biology approach to study inherited genetic disorders, cancer and infectious diseases.

The lab is led by principal investigator Akhilesh Pandey, M.D., Ph.D., a clinical pathologist and expert in multi-omics technologies. Dr. Pandey's interdisciplinary lab team includes biochemists, pathologists, chemists, mass spectrometrists, molecular biologists and computational biologists.

Our research team uses cutting-edge multi-omics technologies to investigate molecular mechanisms of various diseases and to develop assays of diagnostic and prognostic relevance for precision medicine. Precision medicine, also called personalized medicine, uses information about a person's genome, environment, lifestyle and other factors to customize treatment and care.

Our lab also has been leading efforts to identify biomarkers and develop assays for congenital disorders of glycosylation and other genetic conditions. This work uses mass spectrometry-based methods including proteomics, glycoproteomics and glycomic analysis to improve diagnosis and outcomes.

In addition, we're establishing cutting-edge single-cell proteomics methods to profile protein-level molecular changes at single-cell resolution in various conditions.

Our work helps improve care through better diagnostics and identification of novel biomarkers. For example, identifying predictive markers of resistance to immunomodulatory medication for multiple myeloma enables tailored treatment options.

Our team developed the first draft map of the human proteome — the set of all proteins in the human body. This work, which was featured on the cover of the prestigious journal Nature in 2014, helped accelerate basic and translational research through a better understanding of gene-protein pathway networks in health and disease.

About Dr. Pandey

In addition to leading the Systems Biology and Translational Medicine Lab at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, Dr. Pandey is a professor of laboratory medicine and pathology and a professor of pharmacology at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science. He also is the director of the Proteomics Core at Mayo Clinic and leads mass spectrometry-based diagnostic assay development in the Advanced Diagnostic Laboratory. Dr. Pandey has four patents related to cytokine and immune receptors and development of assays for cancer-specific mutant peptides. He also is the founding director of the Institute of Bioinformatics in Bangalore, India.