Group of Bioinformatics

Arsen Arakelyan

Head of the group, DSc

E-mail: aarakelyan@sci.am

Laboratory members

Lilit Nersisyan

Senior researcher

Siras Hakobyan

Junior researcher

Mariya Nokighosyan

Junior researcher

Meline Hakobyan

Junior researcher

Suren Davidavyan

Junior researcher

Nelli Vardazaryan

Senior laboratory assistant

Razmik Sargsyan

Senior laboratory assistant

Mariam Alkhazyan

Senior laboratory assistant

General information

BIG (http://big.sci.am) was the first research unit in Armenia to deal with the computational challenges of genomics. It’s been focused on the development and application of algorithms and software for “-omics” data analysis, as well as molecular networks and pathways to facilitate the discovery of molecular mechanisms of complex diseases. The group has developed the Pathway Signal Flow algorithm (PSF) that provides quantitative measures of pathway activity based on gene expression data, software for the extraction of topology information from the KEGG pathways (KEGGParser and CyKEGGParser), software (Computel) for the calculation of telomere length from WGS data, which is currently one of two most cited software tools for telomere length calculations worldwide. Cancer genomics is one of the focus areas of BIG research, in particular, multi-omics analysis of lung, colon, brain, and blood cancers.

Current Research Projects

  1. Arakelyan A, Melkonyan A, Hakobyan S, Boyarskih U, Simonyan A, Nersisyan L, Nikoghosyan M, Filipenko M, Binder H. Transcriptome Patterns of BRCA1- and BRCA2- Mutated Breast and Ovarian Cancers. Int J Mol Sci. 2021 Jan 28;22(3):1266. doi: 10.3390/ijms22031266
  2. Nersisyan L, Hopp L, Loeffler-Wirth H, Galle J, Loeffler M, Arakelyan A, Binder H. Telomere Length Maintenance and Its Transcriptional Regulation in Lynch Syndrome and Sporadic Colorectal Carcinoma. Front Oncol. 2019 Nov 5;9:1172. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2019.01172
  3. Nikoghosyan M, Hakobyan S, Hovhannisyan A, Loeffler-Wirth H, Binder H, Arakelyan A. Population Levels Assessment of the Distribution of Disease-Associated Variants With Emphasis on Armenians – A Machine Learning Approach. Front Genet. 2019 Apr 26;10:394. doi: 10.3389/fgene.2019.00394
  4. Arakelyan A, Nersisyan L, Poghosyan D, Khondkaryan L, Hakobyan A, Löffler-Wirth H, Melanitou E, Binder H. Autoimmunity and autoinflammation: A systems view on signaling pathway dysregulation profiles. PLoS One. 2017 Nov 3;12(11):e0187572. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0187572
  5. Nersisyan L, Arakelyan A. Computel: computation of mean telomere length from whole-genome next-generation sequencing data. PLoS One. 2015 Apr 29;10(4):e0125201. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0125201