Anton Buzdin (AB) graduated from Moscow State University and defended PhD thesis in molecular biology at Shemyakin-Ovchinnikov Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry.  Since 2005, AB runs several research laboratories. AB also worked as CEO of several international biotech and biomed companies. AB authored 198 scientific papers and patent applications. AB team pioneered bioinformatic quantitative analysis of molecular pathways using transcriptomic or proteomic data, and developed several specialized algorithms and software packages to personalize prescription of proper target, immunotherapy or chemotherapy drugs to the patients that was clinically validated and commercialized (Oncobox/Oncofinder/iPanda).

To mention, a prospective clinical investigation has been planned and performed of using RNA sequencing analysis for personalized cancer therapy. Transcriptomic profiles were analyzed using Oncobox platform that identifies altered expression of drug target genes and molecular pathways and builds a personalized rating of targeted therapeutics. Totally, 239 adult solid cancer patients were enrolled: 135 received cancer drug therapy, others received palliative treatment or radiotherapy, or died before therapy started. Oncobox recommended drugs were prescribed in 59 % of the cases receiving therapy. Otherwise, patients received non-targeted therapy or targeted therapy predicted as inefficient by Oncobox (controls). Patients in the Oncobox group were significantly pre-treated compared to controls, but we observed a longer progression-free survival (PFS) trend in the Oncobox group. Furthermore, post-hoc analysis revealed that time between biopsy collection and tumor profiling significantly impacts Oncobox predictive capacity. Excluding patient cases with biopsy obtained more than 7 months before sequencing lead to a significant difference in PFS between Oncobox and control groups with hazard ratio of 0.45 (p-value = 0.023). These results suggest that transcriptomic profiling provides clinically relevant therapeutic match and can improve disease control rate in solid cancers.

In addition, the first unbiased algorithmic approach for molecular pathway reconstruction using human interactome model was developed, and the biggest database OncoboxPD with 51K+ human molecular pathways was developed with options for their customization, activation quantitative assessment, and visualization of the results. The «gold standard» reference open-access database ANTE was developed with normal human tissue RNAseq profiles obtained for the healthy donors killed in road accidents. In a systematic analysis of authopsy-derived healty tissues, and tumor-matched norms, a number of pathologic alterations was identified first that are specific for the tumor-matched «norms».

Bioinformatic method FLOWPS was developed to adopt machine learning algorithms to the analysis of gene expression and mutation data from the small cohorts of cancer patients. Shambhala technique was created to enable simultaneous harmonization of multiple gene expression platforms into a universal form. MiRImpact method is a unique tool to assess impact of whole microRNA profiles on molecular pathway activation. Watermelon Multisection is a new unique tool to quantitate quality of data clustering on dendrograms (~thousands of molecular profiles). AB team discovered multiple molecular markers of cancer. He authored several techniques in molecular biology for differential analysis of gene expression and of epigenetic landmarks.

He discovered a new mechanism of RNA recombination in mammals and dissected molecular functions of numerous human genetic transposable elements. AB served as Chief Scientific Officer at Pathway Pharmaceuticals (Hong Kong), Insilico Medicine (USA) and Omicsway (USA). Now AB heads several research laboratories, supervises 26 international employees and runs projects on molecular oncology, immunology and clinical bioinformatics at Sechenov First Moscow Medical University, Shemyakin-Ovchinnikov Institute, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, and Omicsway (USA). AB chairs a clinical trial NCT03724097 of transcriptomic-guided prescription of targeted therapeutics to advanced cancer patients using Oncobox platform. Since April 2021, AB serves as Chair of the Biostatistics and Bioinformatics subgroup, Pathobiology Group, European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC), and is a Specialty Chief Editor (Cancer Genetics and Oncogenomics) of journal Frontiers in Genetics.

AB GoogleScholar profile is : https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=UffKV1sAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate AB is one of top-2% authors with globally biggest citation rate in biomedicine, according to Elsevier Science-Metrix, October 2023 data-update for “Updated science-wide author databases of standardized citation indicators” of (DOI: 10.17632/btchxktzyw.6).