Editorial Board

Editorial Team

Chief Editor

Rabia Begum, PhD, Springer Nature, London, UK 
Rabia studied Biochemistry at Kings College London and received a PhD in neurogenetics from the MRC Prion Unit, UCL Institute of Neurology. Her doctoral research was focused on genetic modifiers of prion disease and mechanisms of disease susceptibility. Her research interests include neurogenomics, clinical genomics and precision medicine. She is based in the London office.


Senior Editor

Roshan Ahmed, PhD, Springer Nature, New York, USA
Roshan earned her Bachelor’s degree from the University of Chicago where she studied Biology and the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science and Medicine. She completed her doctoral research on pancreatic cancer metabolism and preclinical therapeutics at Columbia University and received her PhD in pharmacology and molecular signaling. Her research interests include cancer biology and the microbiome. She is based in the New York office.

Patrik Flammer, DPhil, MSc, Springer Nature, London, UK
Patrik holds an MSc in Molecular and Cell Biology, and completed his DPhil at the University of Oxford working on genetics and epidemiology of human intestinal parasites. His postdoctoral research extended this to include aspects of ancient DNA and epidemiology of infections in past populations. He is based in the London office.



Associate Editor

Gabriele Alfarano, PhD, Springer Nature, Berlin, Germany
Gabriele graduated in Medical Biotechnologies and Nanobiotechnologies at the University of Salento (Lecce, Italy). He obtained a PhD in Molecular Oncology at the European School of Molecular Medicine in Milan, working on the regulation of pancreatic cancer differentiation. He extended this work in his postdoctoral research to focus on the transcriptional, epigenetic and metabolic heterogeneity of pancreatic cancer. He is based in the Berlin office.


Editorial Board Members
 

Fowzan Alkuraya, MD, King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center, Saudi Arabia
orcid.org/0000-0003-4158-341X
Research interests: Mendelian Disorders

Fowzan S Alkuraya is a Professor of Human Genetics at Alfaisal University and the Chairman of the Department of Translational Genomics at King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center. He joined medical school (King Saud University) before turning 15 and graduated first in his class with first class honor. He did his pediatric residency at Georgetown University Hospital, followed by a fellowship in clinical genetics and another in molecular genetics at Harvard Medical School. He also did a postdoctoral research fellowship in the area of developmental genetics in the lab of Prof. Richard Maas at Harvard Medical School. He returned to his native Saudi Arabia to establish the Developmental Genetics Lab, which later evolved into the Center for Genomic Medicine at KFSHRC. He is an authority in the area of Mendelian genetics with more than 500 published manuscripts that describe his lab’s discovery of hundreds of novel disease genes in humans as well as many other seminal contributions to the field of human genetics as featured in profiles published by The Lancet and Science. He is a frequently invited speaker at local, regional and international conferences, on the editorial board of prominent human genetics journals, and the recipient of numerous prestigious awards including William King Bowes Award in Medical Genetics (first non-US based winner), King Salman Award for Disability Research and Curt Stern Award for Excellence in Human Genetics Research (first non-US based winner). 

Patrick Aloy, PhD, Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona), Spain
orcid.org/0000-0002-3557-0236
Research interests: systems pharmacology, computer-aided drug design, network biology, network medicine, personalised medicine

Dr Patrick Aloy is an ICREA Research Professor and Principal Investigator of the Structural Bioinformatics and Network Biology (SB&NB) lab at the IRB. He obtained his BSc in Biochemistry, MSc in Biotechnology and PhD in Computational Biology by the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain. He spent one and a half years working at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (London, UK), and over five years as postdoctoral researcher and staff scientist at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (Heidelberg, DE).
The main goal of his laboratory is to combine molecular, cell and computational biology to unveil the basic wiring architecture and dynamics of physio-pathological pathways to discover new therapeutic opportunities and increase our understanding of how biological systems change from the healthy state to disease. In the last years he has been developing resources to process, harmonize and integrate bioactivity data on small molecules, providing compound bioactivity descriptors that push the similarity principle beyond chemical properties, reaching various ambits of biology. Currently, the main research line in the lab is to collect genuinely heterogeneous datasets and develop novel methodologies to truly integrate different layers of regulation to unveil disease signatures. Moreover, they are convinced that artificial intelligence (AI) will transform drug discovery, as it is reshaping other areas of science and technology, and biological signatures are the key to guide the (semi) automated design of chemical compounds to globally revert disease states, beyond individual targets. Webpage. 

Andrew Beggs, PhD, University of Birmingham, UK
orcid.org/0000-0003-0784-2967
Research interests: Cancer, Genomics, Nanopore sequencing, HLA

Andrew Beggs is a Professor of Cancer Genetics & Surgery at the University of Birmingham, U.K. He is broadly interested in all aspects of molecular genetics, but has a specific interest in somatic cancer genetics and new technologies. His laboratory has expertise in single cell and nanopore sequencing technologies to answer clinically relevant questions in cancer genetics. He is also clinically active, practicing as a consultant surgeon in the UK. Webpage.

Jian Carrot-Zhang, PhD, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, USA
orcid.org/0000-0002-0103-9965
Research interests: Cancer genetics, genomics

Dr. Carrot-Zhang is interested in developing cutting-edge computational methods to characterize cancer risk and response to treatment mechanisms. We combine statistical modeling and large-scale, multiethnic clinical genomic cohorts to understand how cancer is impacted by genetic ancestry, with the goal of improving precision oncology for all. Webpage.

Nicholas Croucher, PhD, Imperial College London, UK
orcid.org/0000-0001-6303-8768
Research interests: Bacterial evolution, bacterial epidemiology, horizontal gene transfer, antimicrobial resistance, vaccines

I am a Reader in Bacterial Genomics at the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis at Imperial College London. My primary interest is the study of bacterial evolution and epidemiology using a combination of mathematical modelling, molecular biology and bioinformatic analyses. Recent work has involved the development of algorithms for analysis of large genomic datasets, with applications to understanding horizontal gene transfer, the distribution of antimicrobial resistance phenotypes, and the impact of vaccination campaigns. Webpage.

Aaron Diaz, PhD, University of California, San Francisco, USA
orcid.org/0000-0001-9059-9501
Research interests: brain tumors, glioma, medulloblastoma, immunotherapy, genomics, single-cell

Dr. Diaz is interested in developing targeted therapeutics for the treatment of primary brain tumors. His laboratory applies molecular and computational approaches to identify therapeutic targets and pathways involved in cancer progression. Dr. Diaz was trained in both computational and molecular biology. As a postdoc at UCSF, he discovered mechanisms of stem-cell self-renewal via genome-wide loss-of-function screening and systems approaches. In 2015 he started a lab in the Brain Tumor Center of UCSF. The core competencies of the Diaz lab include systems biology, bioinformatics, and single-cell genomics of human clinical specimens. Dr. Diaz is a PI on several multi-year grants from private foundations, the Department of Defense, and the National Institutes of Health and a member of the editorial boards of Neuro-Oncology and Genome Medicine. The Diaz lab has published studies on brain-tumor heterogeneity and immuno-oncology (e.g. Cancer Discovery 2019, Genome Biology 2020, Nature Cancer 2022). This work has been acknowledged with the Adult Basic Research Award from the Society of Neuro-Oncology twice. Webpage.

Charis Eng, MD, PhD, Cleveland Clinic, USA
orcid.org/0000-0002-3693-5145
Research interests: Inherited cancers, germline genomics, cancer genetics, PTEN-related disease genetics, cancer microbiome

Prof. Charis Eng is the inaugural Chair of the Cleveland Clinic’s Genomic Medicine Institute and inaugural Director, Center for Personalized Genetic Healthcare, an American Cancer Society Clinical Research Professor and the Sondra J. and Stephen R. Hardis Endowed Chair of Cancer Genomic Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic. She is Professor and Vice Chair, Department of Genetics and Genome Sciences, Case Comprehensive Cancer Center at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. In her leadership roles, she continues to implement evidence-based genetic- and genomics-enabled precision healthcare, improving care for patients at genetic risk of disease nationally and globally. Her expertise lies in the genomics of heritable cancers, chief of which are those of the breasts and thyroid, and studies the microbiome as a transducer of the environment to the genome. With >500 peer-reviewed articles, she is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and was conferred the American Cancer Society Medal of Honor, among numerous awards. Prof Eng has served as advisory to DHHS Secretary’s Committee on Genetics, Health & Society and is Editor-in-Chief of Human Molecular Genetics, a Senior Editor of Cancer Research and an Associate Editor of npj Genomic Medicine. Webpage.

Eric R. Gamazon, PhD, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, USA
orcid.org/0000-0003-4204-8734
Research interests: Genomics, statistical genetics, machine learning, functional genomics, multi-omics, gene regulation, single-cell omics, iPSCs, causal inference

Dr. Eric Gamazon is interested in what can be learned from DNA sequence and multi-omics data about disease mechanisms, therapeutic intervention, molecular evolution, and genome function. His laboratory at Vanderbilt University Medical Center is an interdisciplinary group with expertise in computational genomics and molecular biology. He utilizes large-scale DNA biobank data linked to electronic health records, along with machine learning and single-cell omics, to identify genes involved in human health and disease in diverse populations, to discover novel biomarkers, and to enable a comprehensive systems view of the disease phenome. He co-chaired the GWAS Working Group of the GTEx Consortium and has served on various National Institutes of Health (NIH) study sections. He was a recipient of the inaugural Genomic Innovator Award from the NIH. He is a Life Member of Clare Hall, University of Cambridge.  Webpage.

Greg Gibson, PhD, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA
orcid.org/0000-0002-5352-5877
Research interests: transcriptomics, integrative genomics, evolutionary genetics, genetic policy

Greg Gibson has twin interests in genotype-by-environment interactions and integrative genomics for personalized medicine. His major focus is applications of transcriptomics to elucidate the mechanisms by which genetic variation mediates complex phenotypes and pathology. In parallel, since his days as a fly geneticist, he has been studying how canalization influences the evolution of traits. Recent work in single cell and bulk tissue transcriptomics has explored the use of transcriptional risk scores in inflammatory bowel disease and autoimmunity. Greg has authored two text-books of genomics and human genetics, and maintains the GenomesTake monthly genetics blog. Webpage. 

Leng Han, PhD, Texas A&M University, USA
orcid.org/0000-0002-7380-2640
Research interests: Cancer Genomics, Cancer Immunotherapy, Noncoding RNAs, Computational Biology

Dr. Leng Han is an Associate Professor at Institute of Biosciences and Technology, Texas A&M University. Our lab utilizes cutting-edge techniques in systems biology to understand the molecular mechanisms of complex diseases. We have comprehensive understanding of the molecular mechanisms of novel transcriptomic elements in cancer (Trends in Cancer, 2018), including pseudogenes (Nature Communications, 2014), lncRNA (Cancer Research, 2015), RNA editing (Cancer Cell, 2015), eQTL (Nucleic Acids Research, 2018), snoRNA (Cell Reports, 2017), APA (Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 2018), circRNA (Genome Medicine, 2019) and eRNA (Nature Communications, 2019). We pioneered a series of pan-cancer analyses to provide clinical insights into cancer therapy, including chronotherapy (Cell Systems, 2018), hypoxia-targeted therapy (Nature Metabolism, 2019), and immunotherapy (Nature Immunology, 2019; Nature Communications, 2020a; Nature Communications, 2020b; JNCI, 2021, Cancer Cell, 2021). We have been invited to contribute review, commentary and spotlight by multiple journals, including Nature Biotechnology, Nature Metabolism, Trends in Genetics, Trends in Cancer, Trends in Molecular Medicine, Genome Medicine, and Oncogene. Webpage.

Vanessa Hayes, PhD, The University of Sydney, Australia
orcid.org/0000-0002-4524-7280
Research interests: prostate cancer genomics, ancestry and health, health disparities, whole cancer genomes, cancer drivers, mutational signatures, structural variants, African inclusion in genomic medicine, pathogenic mutations, optical genome mapping

As Professor of the Ancestry & Health Genomics Laboratory (Hayes Lab) located in the Charles Perkins Centre at the University of Sydney and Petre Chair of Prostate Cancer Research, the labs focus is on investigating the complexities of the human and cancer genome and how genomic variation has shaped human evolution and health. Our over-riding goal, to unlock the ancestral and mutagenic factors driving geo-ethnic prostate cancer health disparity to deliver precision medicine to diagnose, treat and prevent specifically lethal disease. Our program of research is underpinned by expertise in genomic and data science, with a steadfast commitment to securing individualized cancer care options for patients worldwide. Our vision is to use patient-driven research that links genomic science with clinical science, specifically population science (or ancestry genomics), with a focus on under-served or minority populations. This multilayered approach is vital for investigating the entire spectrum of factors that can impact cancer progression and patient health outcomes. Webpage.

Matthias Heinig, Dr. rer. nat., Helmholtz Zentrum München, Germany
Research interests: computational biology, genetics of gene expression, complex trait genetics, cardiovascular diseases, multi-omics, single cell genomics


Matthias Heinig is independent group leader at the Institute of Computational Biology at Helmholtz Munich. He studied Bioinformatics at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Technical University Munich and Freie Universität Berlin. He obtained his PhD at the Max-Delbrück-Center and worked as a Postdoc at the Max Planck Institute for molecular genetics in Berlin.
Together with his research group, he develops AI solutions for personalized network based precision medicine. His aim is to identify molecular regulatory networks underlying common diseases and the genetic and epigenetic mechanisms controlling these networks from population level DNA, multi-omics and single cell data sets. A special focus is the molecular characterization of metabolic and cardiovascular diseases. Webpage.

Winston Hide, PhD, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School, USA
orcid.org/0000-0002-8621-3271
Research interests: bioinformatics, systems biology, neurodegeneration, transcriptomics, spatial transcriptomics, drug repurposing

Winston Hide, Ph.D., is the Director of the Precision RNA Medicine Core at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He is an associate professor in the Department of Pathology at Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Hide applies systematic organizing approaches to genomic data to reveal critical disease events occurring in cancers and neurodegeneration. He builds and implements systems that result in discovery and prioritization of key genes, pathways, processes and prediction of drugs that can targets these in complex diseases. Dr. Hide has worked with key industry partners, including Biogen, to develop translational pipelines for target prioritization.
Dr. Hide was elected into the Academy of Science of South Africa in 2007. He was also the first recipient of the “International Society for Computational Biology Award for Outstanding Achievement,” given in recognition of his work for the development of computational biology and bioinformatics in Africa. Webpage.

Francesco Iorio, PhD, Human Technopole, Italy
orcid.org/0000-0001-7063-8913
Research interests: computational biology, cancer dependencies, pharmacogenomics, CRISPR, drug repositioning, new algorithms, bioinformatics tools, pathway inference, causal reasoning, network theory, machine learning

Francesco is a computer scientist by training. He completed his PhD studies at the University of Salerno and the TeleThon Institute of Genetics and Medicine (TIGEM, Naples - Italy), where he focused on computational drug discovery and repositioning methods. Subsequently, he has been awarded a joint EMBL – European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) and Wellcome Sanger Institute (WSI) post-doctoral (ESPOD) fellowship to work on integrative computational frameworks for predicting and dissecting drug sensitivity in cancer, analysing data from large-scale in vitro drug screens. Following this, as a senior bioinformatician at EBI, Francesco has led the analysis of data from large-scale genome-wide CRISPR-Cas9 pooled screens across hundreds of cancer cell lines, aiming to identify synthetic lethalities in cancer and new therapeutic targets. From 2018 to 2020 he has been leading the WSI's Cancer Dependency Map Analytics team, providing computational support to the Cancer Dependency Map partnership: an international endeavour involving the WSI and Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard to identify all the genetic dependencies and vulnerabilities existing in cancer cells. Since late 2020 Francesco is a Research Group Leader in Computational Biology at the Human Technopole (Milan, Italy) where he is establishing a research program in Computational cancer Pharmacogenomics and Therapeutic Target Discovery. Webpage.

Razelle Kurzrock, MD, F.A.C.P., United States
Research Interests: Clinical Trials, Precision Oncology

Razelle Kurzrock, MD is a world-renowned physician-scientist leader in precision medicine as well as in the development of novel therapeutics in the field of oncology. She is recognized for founding, developing and chairing one of the largest Phase 1 clinical trial departments globally while at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center; the central theme of the department was a personalized medicine strategy. She is also one of the pioneering trialists of the WINTHER precision medicine international trial focusing, for the first time, on transcriptomics in addition to genomics.  This trial was the signature study of the Worldwide Innovative Network (WIN) consortium (Nature Medicine).

Clint Miller, PhD, University of Virginia, United States