M. Madan Babu

M. Madan Babu FRSC is a computational biologist and bioinformatician.[1][3] He is the endowed chair in biological data science and director of the center of excellence for data-driven discovery at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Previously, he served as a programme leader at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB), part of the University of Cambridge.[4]

M. Madan Babu FRSC
M. Madan Babu speaking at the Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB) conference in Chicago in 2018
Born	Mohan Madan Babu
Alma mater	Anna University (BTech) University of Cambridge (PhD)
Awards	Colworth Medal (2014) Crick Lecture (2016) EMBO Member (2016) Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists (2018) ISCB Innovator Award (2018) EMBO Gold Medal (2019)
Scientific career
Fields	Computational biology Systems biology Network biology Disordered proteins Regulatory genomics[1]
Institutions	St. Jude Children's Research Hospital MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology University of Cambridge National Center for Biotechnology Information
Thesis	Evolution of transcriptional regulatory networks (2004)
Doctoral advisor	Sarah Teichmann[2]
Website	www.stjude.org/directory/b/madan-babu.html

Early life and education

Babu grew up in Chennai, India.[5] He became interested in learning to program as a young child when his father brought home a personal computer.[5] Babu was introduced to biotechnology as a high school student.[5] He obtained his Bachelor of Technology degree from Anna University, where he was introduced to the field of computational biology.[5] Babu obtained his PhD in computational genomics at the University of Cambridge supervised by Sarah Teichmann in 2004.[2]

Career and research

After his PhD, Babu was a postdoctoral researcher at the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), at the National Institute of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland with Aravind L. Iyer. In 2006, he became a group leader at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK. In July 2020, Babu joined the faculty of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital as the endowed chair in biological data science in the structural biology department and director of the center of excellence for data-driven discovery.[6]

Babu's research focuses on understanding the regulation of cellular systems at varying scales, including molecular, system, and genomic levels.[1] He also studies the effects of such regulation on genome evolution.[5][7] In particular, his research group studies G protein-coupled receptors and intrinsically disordered proteins using a combination of computational biology and experimental biology approaches.[8][9]

As of 2020 Babu serves as chief editor of the journal Molecular Systems Biology.[7][10]

Awards and honours

• 2009: EMBO young investigator, European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) [11]
• 2014: Awarded the Colworth Medal by the Biochemical Society[12]
• 2014: Awarded the research prize by the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine[13][14]
• 2015: Awarded the Francis Crick Lecture by the Royal Society[15][8]
• 2016: Elected a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization[16]
• 2017: Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC)
• 2018: Won the Blavatnik Award for Young Scientists from the New York Academy of Sciences[17]
• 2018: Won the ISCB Innovator Award from the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB)[18]
• 2019: Won the EMBO Gold Medal[19]

References

1. M. Madan Babu publications indexed by Google Scholar
2. Mohan, Madan Babu (2004). Evolution of transcriptional regulatory networks. cam.ac.uk (PhD thesis). University of Cambridge. OCLC 890159758. EThOS uk.bl.ethos.616113.
3. M. Madan Babu publications from Europe PubMed Central
4. Various (2005). "The Transcriptional Landscape of the Mammalian Genome". Science. 309 (5740): 1559–1563. Bibcode:2005Sci...309.1559F. doi:10.1126/science.1112014. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 16141072. S2CID 8712839.
5. "2018 ISCB Innovator Award: M. Madan Babu". iscb.org. Retrieved 2020-11-21.
6. "M. Madan Babu joins St. Jude Children's Research Hospital as endowed chair in biological data science". stjude.org. Retrieved 2020-11-21.
7. Kiessling, Tilmann (2019). "Molecular Systems Biology appoints M. Madan Babu as new Chief Editor". embo.org. Retrieved 2020-11-22.
8. Patterson, Holly (29 November 2016). "Code-cracking: using computers to understand life's source codes". Inside Science.
9. Anon (2016). "Illuminating the Dark Proteome". Cell. 166 (5): 1074–1077. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2016.08.012. ISSN 0092-8674. PMID 27565336.
10. Lemberger, Thomas; Babu, M Madan (2019). "Enabling next generation systems biology: a conversation with M. Madan Babu". Molecular Systems Biology. 15 (12): e9376. doi:10.15252/msb.199376. ISSN 1744-4292. PMC 6894041. PMID 31885204.
11. "EMBO recognizes talented young group leaders in Europe" (PDF). ifom.eu. 4 November 2009.
12. "The Colworth Medal". biochemistry.org.
13. "Melina Schuh and M. Madan Babu awarded Lister Research Prizes". mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk. MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology. 2014-09-03. Retrieved 2020-11-21.
14. "Madan Babu Archives".
15. Anon (2015). "Unstructured proteins: cellular complexity and human diseases". royalsociety.org. London: Royal Society. Retrieved 2020-11-21.
16. "Three LMB scientists elected to EMBO membership". mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk. MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology. Retrieved 2020-11-21.
17. "The United Kingdom's Top Scientists and Engineers Honoured by the Inaugural Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists". blavatnikawards.org. Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists. Retrieved 2020-11-22.
18. Fogg, Christiana N.; Kovats, Diane E.; Shamir, Ron (2018). "2018 ISCB Innovator Award recognizes M. Madan Babu". PLOS Computational Biology. 14 (6): e1006164. Bibcode:2018PLSCB..14E6164F. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1006164. ISSN 1553-7358. PMC 5991638. PMID 29879101.
19. Kiessling, Tilmann (2019). "M. Madan Babu and Paola Picotti honoured with EMBO Gold Medal". embo.org. Retrieved 2020-11-21.