Iyengar Laboratory

Simon Hardy, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Pharmacology and Systems Therapeutics
E-mail: simon.hardy@mssm.edu

Mailing Address

One Gustave L. Levy Place, Box 1215 New York NY 10029

Training and Education

Ph.D. (2007) Ècole Polytechnique de Montrèal, Montrèal, QC, Canada

M.A.Sc. (2004) Ècole Polytechnique de Montrèal, Montrèal, QC, Canada

B.Eng. (2002) Ècole Polytechnique de Montrèal, Montrèal, QC, Canada

Current Research

Integration of Petri net models and transcription factor arrays to understand signaling networks

A cell is equipped with interconnected intracellular signaling networks that relay and process information from external stimuli to trigger internal phenotypic modifications. My goal is to study these networks in the neuron with theoretical analyses of computational models tightly integrated with bench experiments. The modeling approach is the hybrid functional Petri net, a modeling tool enabling a unified representation of stochastic and continuous phenomena. The experimental data required for a realist modeling will be collected with transcriptional factor arrays. The product will be a predictive, experimentally constrained model that we will use to conduct large-scale quantitative simulations in order to understand the functional organization of the neuron. More precisely, this computational simulation and analysis will predict the formation and activity of regulatory motifs such as positive feed-forward and feedback loops and identify key regulatory components such as small G proteins, protein kinases and phosphatases that participate in these motifs. These predictions will be validated experimentally; they will be tested using reverse phospho-proteomic arrays.

Publications

Hardy S, Robillard PN. Petri net-based method for the analysis of the dynamics of signal propagation in signaling pathways. Bioinformatics. 2008 Jan 15;24(2):209-17.

Hardy S, Robillard, PN. Phenomenological and molecular level Petri net modelling and simulation of long-term potentiation. Biosystems. 2005; 82(1):26-38.

Hardy S, Robillard PN. Modeling and simulation of molecular biology systems using Petri nets: Modeling goals of various approaches. J Bioinform Comput Biol. 2004; 2(4):619-637.

Honors

NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship, Canada Graduate Scholarship