User:AneilMallavarapu

From FreeBio

Head of the little b Project, 
Harvard University, Dept. Systems Biology
T: (617) 432 4842
F: (617) 432 5102
E: aneil at hms.harvard.edu

I am developing a programming language, called "little b", which is intended to make it easier to write and to share mathematical models of biological systems. Today, model making is the province of a relatively small group of experts. My hope is for scientists to be able to share the knowledge and assumptions that go into models, so that modeling can become a collaborative activity. The language was designed to address two key problems: enabling sharing and automating model construction. Please feel free to contact me about little b, or visit the website: www.littleb.org.

Prior to joining the Systems Biology Department, I spent several years at Millennium Pharmaceuticals during the heyday of genomics developing technology and leading efforts to integrate and share structured scientific knowledge. During that time, I had the opportunity to spend a year at the Harvard Center for Genomics Research to understand how systems theory could be applied to problems in drug discovery. One outstanding problem was how to simplify the process of building reliable models. I imagined a tool that would enable a modeler to "mix together" predefined, trusted components. These would automatically wire themselves together - in analogy to how a biochemist reconstitutes a system by mixing proteins in a test tube. I proposed a computational framework based on this idea back in February, 2003 - and this has evolved into little b.

My formal training has been in cell biology and biochemistry, though I've had a long interest in computing. I got my start in science with Dan Jay, then a professor at the Harvard BioLabs. We created microCALI, a microscope-based version of the chromophore-assisted laser inactivation technology which he pioneered, and used it to investigate the role of molecules in nerve cell growth. I did my Ph.D. at UCSF with Tim Mitchison, developing photoactivation and photobleaching technologies to visualize cytoskeletal dynamics involved in: neuronal tip movement, mitosis, and cell division orientation.