About this Event
Talk title: Genes, Data, and Discovery: Finding Tomorrow’s Medicines
Description: Advances in human genetics and population-scale biomedical data are reshaping how we discover and prioritize drug targets. This talk will highlight how integrating diverse datasets, including genetics, functional genomics, and molecular phenotyping, can strengthen biological understanding and de-risk target selection. I will also discuss how large-scale predictive models are expanding our ability to systematically identify and prioritize targets across disease areas. I will conclude by discussing how large collaborative efforts for data collection and generation, including the UK Biobank Pharma Proteomics Project, are helping to build a more data-driven future for drug discovery.
Melissa R. Miller, PhD, is a Senior Director of Human Genetics in the Internal Medicine Research Unit at Pfizer. Melissa and her team use human genetics and statistical genetics methods to help identify and prioritize targets to support the discovery of new medicines to address unmet medical needs in cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. Melissa leads or has been involved in several pre-competitive consortia including co-founding the UK Biobank Pharma Proteomics Consortium, the UK Biobank whole exome sequencing consortium, co-chair of the AMP Common Metabolic diseases program, and member of the Accelerating Medicines Partnership (AMP) Type 2 Diabetes (T2D). Melissa joined Pfizer in 2014. Prior to joining Pfizer, Melissa completed her PhD in Epidemiology at the University of Colorado and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in statistical genetics and genetic epidemiology at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto.
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Data Science Institute, University of Toronto, 700 University Avenue, Toronto, Canada
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