The Systems Biology of Aging Group was founded by Dr. Robi Tacutu in 2016, and is part of the department of Bioinformatics and Structural Biochemistry at the Institute of Biochemistry of the Romanian Academy. The group is currently funded by a recently awarded EUR 1.9 million grant (Romanian/EU co-funded) for the project “Multi-omics Prediction System for Prioritization of Gerontological Interventions”.
The main areas of interest in the group include studying biology of ageing/biogerontology, systems biology and bioinformatics, overall the expertise required to acheive these spanning multiple research fields (from bioinformatics to synthetic biology).
With a highly multi-disciplinary team, the projects tackeled by the group include both computational aspects (data aggregation and processing, multi-dimensional data analysis, network-based methods, systems theory approaches, deep learning, etc.) as well as wet-lab experiments (in particular in-vivo testing of the computationally predicted interventions).
Group leader
A thorough, analytical and curiosity-driven scientist, with a multidisciplinary background in biology and computer science, Robi received his BSc in computer science from the University Politehnica Bucharest, and his MSc in biochemistry and molecular biology from the University of Bucharest. He has a long-term commitment and interest in the field of biogerontology (since 2005) and received his PhD in 2013 from the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, in the lab of Prof. Vadim Fraifeld. His thesis was on an ageing-related topic: studying the relationships between aging and age-related diseases with the use of bioinformatics and network biology approaches, and More...
PhD student, Bioinformatics research assistant
Alexandra is a bioinformatics researcher at the Institute of Biochemistry, focussing on developing large screen analysis pipelines and automated tools for data and dataset annotation. She is also a PHD candidate at Univers More...
Bioinformatics research assistant
Anton has a formal background in international management and economics (Kyiv National Economic University, 2003 - 2008, M.A. with honors). Being passionate about programming since high school, he worked for many years as More...
Technician, Front-end developer
With a B.Sc. in Communication Sciences, Catalin joined the Computational Biology of Aging Group in order to aesthetically shape all of our web resources and interactions with the outside work. Aside from his formal educati More...
Project Manager
Without managerial help, our projects would surely fail, being swamped at the first sight of bureaucracy. Since Constantina (Tatiana for us) joined the Computational Biology of Aging Group, we have been able to properly fo More...
PhD. Eng. Costin-Gabriel Chiru (200+ citations, h-index 8) is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Automatic Control and Computers from University Politehnica of Bucharest. In the past, he worked as a Teaching Assistan More...
Research assistant, Web developer
Dan Mihaila is a researcher in the Institute of Biochemistry of the Romanian Academy. Dan is currently working in Systems Biology of Aging in the Bioinformatics & Structural Biochemistry.
Assistant researcher
Dmitri is a bioinformatics researcher at the Institute of Biochemistry, focusing on curation for aging-related data, analysis of large screen datasets, dataset annotation and network-based analyses. He also holds a Ph.D. d More...
Junior Bioinformatician
Eugen Ursu is a researcher in the Institute of Biochemistry of the Romanian Academy. Eugen is currently working in Systems Biology of Aging in the Bioinformatics & Structural Biochemistry.
PhD student, Bioinformatics research assistant
Gabriela is a bioinformatics researcher at the Institute of Biochemistry, focussing on curation for aging-related data, analysis of large screen datasets and network-based analyses. She has a multidisciplinary background, More...
Postdoctoral Researcher
Ioan has a background in regenerative medicine, cell therapies, stem cells and diabetes research. He has worked extensively on endocrine pancreatic cell differentiation, starting with his Ph.D. at the Nippon Dental Univers More...
Junior Bioinformatician
Larisa Sârghie is a researcher in the Institute of Biochemistry of the Romanian Academy. Larisa is currently working in Systems Biology of Aging in the Bioinformatics & Structural Biochemistry.
Laurentiu Spiridon is a researcher in the Institute of Biochemistry of the Romanian Academy. Laurentiu is currently working in Bioinformatics & Structural Biochemistry in the Bioinformatics & Structural Biochemistry.
Researcher
Simona Ghenea is a researcher in the Institute of Biochemistry of the Romanian Academy. Simona is currently working in Molecular Cell Biology in the Molecular Cell Biology.
Teodora Bucaciuc is a researcher in the Institute of Biochemistry of the Romanian Academy. Teodora is currently working in Systems Biology of Aging in the Bioinformatics & Structural Biochemistry.
PhD student, Machine learning research assistant
Vlad is a senior software engineer (with more than 12 years experience), who has been involved in commercial projects for various partners in the EU, USA, Canada, and having a variety of roles in design, engineering and re More...
Starting 02.09.2016, the Institute of Biochemistry of the Romanian Academy is implementing the project “Multi-omics prediction system for prioritization of gerontological interventions”, co-funded through European Fund for Regional Development, in accordance with the funding contract signed by the Ministry of National Education and Scientific Research. The total funding for the project is 8.524.757,50 lei, of which 8.502.557,50 lei represent non-reimbursable funding. The project’s duration is 48 months.
The Systems Biology of Aging team is grateful for the "Microsoft Azure for Research" sponsorship awarded to our group. We have received cloud computing resources worth the equivalent of 20,000$ credits, and this has greatly helped us to speed up some of our research projects.
Starting 01.06.2019, the Institute of Biochemistry of the Romanian Academy is implementing the EMBED project, funded by UEFISCDI (contract 103, from 01.06.2019), through the ERA-NET COFUND-NEURON III grant call. The project aims to assess the shared molecular links between pre- and post-natal, metabolic and psychosocial stress, and the risks of depression later in life, and its duration will be 36 months.
The project aims to analyze and compare the age-related transcriptomics signatures in variuos tisues, both in healthy and pathological individuals, in order to identify shared or unique aging signature that drive aging or age-related diseases.
The project aims to experimentally develop an integrated and automated solution for screening drugs and genetic interventions for neurodegenerative diseases, using the nematode C. elegans and ageing-related data.
Romanian Academy