Awards, appointments, grants, publications, and other updates from the Falls Informatics Group.
Samudrala, Bruggemann, Falls, and Mahajan review cutting-edge computational and experimental approaches for targeting driver KRAS mutations in NSCLC, integrating multiscale drug discovery with translational validation strategies.
View Publication →Xu, Hu, Mangione, Van Norden, Elefteriou, Falls, and Samudrala apply the CANDO multiscale drug discovery platform to identify and prioritize therapeutic candidates for glioma, demonstrating improved benchmarking performance across approved drug recovery metrics.
View Publication →Xu, Jiang, Zhang, Falls, Samudrala et al. use network toxicology and molecular docking to decipher how bisphenol A drives osteoarthritis, identifying key hub targets and applying CANDO to generate novel therapeutic candidates including glucosamine, celecoxib, and ibuprofen.
View Publication →Hu, Elefteriou, Falls, and Samudrala apply a multitarget computational approach using CANDO to uncover novel therapeutic candidates for schizophrenia, leveraging proteome-wide interaction signatures to identify repurposing opportunities beyond current antipsychotic classes.
View Publication →The University at Buffalo received a renewal of its NIH/NCATS Clinical and Translational Science Award (UL1 TR001412), totaling $29,204,726 over six years. Dr. Falls contributes biomedical informatics expertise to the award's research infrastructure and training cores.
View Funding →Dr. Falls was appointed as Affiliated Faculty in the University at Buffalo Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Data Science, reflecting the group's growing engagement with machine learning methodologies for biomedical discovery.
Dr. Falls was appointed as Adjunct Research Assistant Professor at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, formalizing a collaborative relationship supporting oncology informatics research in KRAS-mutant cancers and computational drug discovery.
Dr. Falls was selected to serve on the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) 2026 Annual Symposium Scientific Program Committee, contributing to peer review and program development for one of the premier biomedical informatics conferences.
Falls et al. identify clinical and social predictors of opioid use disorder onset timing among patients entering treatment for alcohol use disorder, drawing on New York State Medicaid and OASAS data across three waves of the opioid epidemic.
View Publication →Van Norden, Mangione, Falls, and Samudrala present a framework for rigorous and generalizable benchmarking of computational drug discovery platforms, with direct application to the CANDO system and implications for the broader field.
View Publication →Lu, Su, Falls et al. examine disparities in opioid dependence drug prescribing among patients with alcohol and opioid use disorders in New York State, stratified by race, geography, and social determinant factors from 2005 to 2018.
View Publication →Dr. Falls was honored with the prestigious Sinsheimer Scholar Award from the Alexandrine and Alexander L. Sinsheimer Fund, recognizing outstanding early-career promise in biomedical research. The $60,000 award supports his computational drug discovery program.
View Funding →Dr. Falls was appointed as Affiliated Faculty at the UB Clinical and Research Institute on Addictions (CRIA), deepening the group's collaborative ties with addiction science researchers and strengthening the translational impact of its EHR and prescribing analytics work.
Van Norden, Falls, Mandloi et al. characterize the disease implications of APOBEC3-driven C-to-U RNA editing events across the human transcriptome, revealing broad relevance for disease variant interpretation and cancer biology in this Nature Portfolio journal.
View Publication →Falls et al. track the incidence, timing, and social correlates of opioid use disorder development among New York State patients seeking treatment for alcohol use disorder, documenting how patterns shifted across the prescription, heroin, and synthetic opioid waves.
View Publication →Bruggemann, Falls, Mangione et al. apply multiscale CANDO analysis to identify and validate synergistic drug combinations targeting driver KRAS mutations in NSCLC — one of the most treatment-resistant cancer subtypes — providing computational and experimental evidence for several candidate regimens.
View Publication →Kumari, Falls et al. deliver a wide-ranging review of antiviral strategies targeting influenza A and B, covering approved therapies, resistance mechanisms, and emerging computational and structure-based approaches to next-generation antiviral discovery.
View Publication →Lu, Jette, Falls et al. describe the construction and validation of a large linked cohort of New York State patients with alcohol use disorder, merging two statewide administrative data sources to enable population-scale clinical informatics research.
View Publication →Mangione, Falls, and Samudrala present a network-based approach for characterizing small molecule effects across heterogeneous biological networks, advancing the methodological foundation of the CANDO platform's multi-scale drug interaction modeling.
View Publication →Following his NLM T15 postdoctoral training, Dr. Zackary Falls was appointed as Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University at Buffalo, where he established the Falls Informatics Group.
Dr. Falls was awarded a NIDA K01 Mentored Research Scientist Career Development Award ($1,046,435, 2022–2027) to investigate polypharmacy-induced adverse drug reactions in patients with substance use disorders using a translational bioinformatics approach.
View Funding →The Department of Biomedical Informatics received a renewal of the NLM T15 BRIGHT training grant ($1,997,145, 2022–2027), supporting graduate and postdoctoral training in biomedical informatics. Dr. Falls serves as Co-Investigator and mentor.
View Funding →Mangione, Falls, and Samudrala apply the CANDO platform to systematically identify repurposed therapeutic candidates against SARS-CoV-2 from the complete approved drug library, demonstrating the platform's rapid-response capability for emerging pathogens.
View Publication →Jacobs, Tober, Falls et al. document longitudinal trends in concurrent opioid, benzodiazepine, and dual co-prescribing among adults with alcohol use disorder in New York State, revealing significant shifts with major clinical safety implications.
View Publication →Falls, Fine, Chopra, and Samudrala demonstrate accurate, proteome-scale prediction of HIV-1 protease inhibitor binding using the CANDOCK fragment-based docking algorithm, validating the approach against known inhibitor co-crystal structures.
View Publication →Overhoff, Falls, Mangione, and Samudrala introduce a deep learning framework trained across thousands of protein–ligand complexes for structure-based drug design at proteome scale, extending the CANDO platform's AI-guided design capabilities.
View Publication →Palanikumar, Falls et al. demonstrate that a protein mimetic amyloid inhibitor potently disrupts cancer-associated mutant p53 aggregation and restores tumor suppressor function — a major oncology finding published in Nature Communications.
View Publication →Dr. Falls was awarded an NLM T15 Informatics Training Fellowship at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, UB (2017–2020), supporting his postdoctoral training in clinical and translational bioinformatics that led directly to his faculty appointment.
Mangione, Falls, Melendy et al. publish "Shotgun drug repurposing biotechnology to tackle epidemics and pandemics" in Drug Discovery Today, outlining how proteome-wide CANDO screening can rapidly identify therapeutic candidates for emerging infectious disease outbreaks. The paper was featured in UB School of Medicine news.
View Publication →Mangione, Falls, Chopra, and Samudrala publish cando.py, an open-source Python library providing a complete, reproducible interface to the CANDO drug discovery platform for large-scale drug–protein–disease data analytics.
View Publication →