Editorial Board Members

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). 

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. 

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.

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.

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.

orcid.ord/0000-0001-6122-1024
Research interests: Cancer immunology and immunotherapy, neoantigens, transcriptomic profiles with clinical relevance in connection to immune responses, genomic instability, hereditary cancer, spatial technologies (transcriptomic and proteomic)

Noel de Miranda is the Principal Investigator of the Cancer Immunogenomics group and Associate Professor at the department of Pathology of the Leiden University Medical Center, The Netherlands. Dr. de Miranda’s group combines the use of high-end genomic, transcriptomic, and proteomic (single cell and spatial) technologies for the study of cancer genetics and immunology. The main aim of the group is to support the development of novel therapies to enrich the immunotherapy toolbox for the treatment of advanced cancers. The group’s activities are subdivided into two major pillars: 1) the discovery of immunotherapeutic targets in cancer patients that are not amenable to state-of-the-art immunotherapies and 2) the identification of (innate) immune cell subsets with immunotherapeutic potential. Webpage.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

orcid.org/0000-0002-0736-9199
Research interests: Computational biology, bioinformatics, machine learning, rare diseases

Peter is Professor of Computational Biology at The Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine, Farmington, CT. Previously, Peter was Professor for Medical Genomics at the Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin and was adjunct professor for Bioinformatics in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science of the Free University of Berlin. Peter’s research group initially characterized Mendelian disease-associated genes including CA8 and PIGV and characterized a novel mode of pathogenesis in a mouse model of Marfan syndrome. The central research theme since 2004 has been the development of computational resources and algorithms for the study of human disease; We have developed the Human Phenotype Ontology (HPO), which provides comprehensive bioinformatic resources for the analysis of human diseases and phenotypes, offering a computational bridge between genome biology and clinical medicine. Peter’s group has developed algorithms for genomics research involving ChIP-seq, NGS-based T-Cell Receptor profiling, and RNA-seq, as well as translational research and diagnostics by whole-exome and whole-genome sequencing. Webpage.

orcid.org/0000-0002-9984-075X
Research interests: My scientific interests focus on precision medicine particularly pharmacogenomics & cancer, and the contribution of ADME genes to drug response and side-effect. Moreover, I am interested in the consideration of novel –omics technologies (e.g. genomics, epigenomics, metabolomics), and the implementation of research findings into clinical practice.

Matthias Schwab studied medicine followed by fellowships in Children's Medicine and Clinical Phar-macology with board certifications for both disciplines. Since 2007 he is Director of the Dept. of Clinical Pharmacology, University Hospital Tuebingen, and the Dr. Margarete Fischer-Bosch-Institute of Clinical Pharmacology, Stuttgart, Germany. He participated in and/or coordinated a number of national/international research networks (e.g., EU-ITN, EU-IMIs, EU-Horizon2020, BMBF). Moreover, he is member of several committees (e.g. German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, German Academy of Science and Literature, Mainz), and received numerous awards (e.g. Galenus von Pergamon Award, the Robert-Pfleger Research Award). His scientific accomplishments result in > 350 peer reviewed publications, and he is repeadetly listed as Clarivate Highly Cited Reseacher (last 2021). Webpage.

orcid.org/0000-0002-3921-4837
Research interests: single cell genomics, cancer, immunology, brain tumors, neuroscience, computational biology

Dr. Sims received his Ph.D. in chemistry from Harvard University. He joined Columbia University as an Assistant Professor of Systems Biology in 2012. In 2020, he was promoted to Associate Professor with appointments in the Department of Systems Biology and the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics. He also serves as the Faculty Director of the Columbia Single Cell Analysis Core. His laboratory focuses on the development of genomic technology for the application of systems biology in cancer, immunology, and neuroscience. This includes both experimental and computational methods for single-cell genomics and cell type-specific analysis of transcription and translation in complex tissues such as the brain. He applies these tools in several human disease contexts including brain tumors and other neurological disorders as well as basic neuroscience and immunology. Webpage.

orcid.org/0000-0002-3950-2476
Research interests: Cancer Genomics, genome sequencing, cancer biomarkers, somatic mutation, variant curation

Dr. Nicola Waddell is head of the Medical Genomics Team at QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Australia. She completed her PhD in 2003 at the University of Leicester. Between 2009-2015 she was part of the International Cancer Genome Consortia (ICGC). Her research group is comprised of collaborative bioinformaticians who analyse multi-omic data to gain insights into cancer development and the tumour microenvironment. She has an interest in profiling cancers to identify prognostic and treatment markers. Webpage.