Bonnie Berger to be Inducted into Medical and Biological Engineering Elite

The American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) has announced the pending induction of Bonnie Berger, Ph.D., Professor of Applied Math and Computer Science at MIT, and head of the Computation and Biology group,, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to its College of Fellows. Dr. Berger was nominated, reviewed, and elected by peers and members of the College of Fellows for outstanding research contributions to computational biology and mentoring of future bioinformatics leaders. The College of Fellows is comprised of the top two percent of medical and biological engineers in the country. The most accomplished and distinguished engineering and medical school chairs, research directors, professors, innovators, and successful entrepreneurs, comprise the College of Fellows. AIMBE Fellows are regularly recognized for their contributions in teaching, research, and innovation. AIMBE Fellows have been awarded the Presidential Medal of Science and the Presidential Medal of Technology and Innovation and many also are members of the National Academy of Engineering, National Academy of Medicine, and the National Academy of Sciences. A formal induction ceremony will be held during AIMBE's 25th Annual Meeting at the National Academy of Sciences Great Hall in Washington, DC on April 4, 2016. Dr. Berger will be inducted along with 160 colleagues who make up the AIMBE College of Fellows Class of 2016. For more information about the AIMBE Annual Meet, please visit www.aimbe.org. AIMBE's mission is to recognize excellence in, and advocate for, the fields of medical and biological engineering in order to advance society. Since 1991, AIMBE's College of Fellows has lead the way for technological growth and advancement in the fields of medical and biological engineering. Fellows have helped revolutionize medicine and related fields in order to enhance and extend the lives of people all over the world. They have also successfully advocated for public policies that have enabled researchers and business-makers to further the interests of engineers, teachers, scientists, clinical practitioners, and ultimately, patients. For questions regarding the College of Fellows and AIMBE, please contact Jason R. Hibner, AIMBE Director of Member Services and Operations at jhibner@aimbe.org, or call the AIMBE office at 202-496-9660. ### American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering: www.aimbe.org Providing Leadership & Advocacy for Medical and Biological Engineering for the Benefit of Society http://www.aimbe.org/press/Berger-COF-1914.pdf Jason Hibner Director of Member Services & Operations 25th Annual Event | April 3-4, 2016 | Washington, DC Come to Look Back on our History and Look Forward Towards Innovation American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) 1701 K Street NW, Suite 510 Washington, DC 20006 (202) 496-9660 | Fax (202) 466-8489 www.aimbe.org Providing Leadership & Advocacy for Medical and Biological Engineering for the Benefit of Society

URL: www.aimbe.org

Contact Person: Jason Hibner (jhibner@aimbe.org)

UC San Diego hiring 'big data' stars

In the past nine months, UC San Diego and the J. Craig Venter Institute in La Jolla recruited three of the country's top "big data" researchers from Google, MIT and the University of Colorado. Two of the deals will cost the campus about $9 million. The latest recruit is Jill Mesirov, the 64 year-old chief informatics officer at the elite Broad Institute at MIT-Harvard. She's joining the UC San Diego School of Medicine, where she'll build the infrastructure needed to analyze such things as genomes, electronic medical records and collections of medical images. The campus confirmed on Wednesday that Mesirov, a cancer expert, will join UC San Diego on July 1st -- if her appointment is approved by the school's Academic Senate, which is expected. For more information go to http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2015/apr/15/bigdata-stars-ucsd/

URL: http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2015/apr/15/bigdata-stars-ucsd/

Contact Person: Suzi Smith (admin@iscb.org)

Olga Troyanskaya brings order to big data of human biology

New York, New York -- A multi-year study led by researchers from the Simons Center for Data Analysis (SCDA) and major universities and medical schools has broken substantial new ground, establishing how genes work together within 144 different human tissues and cell types in carrying out those tissues' functions. The paper, to be published online by Nature Genetics on April 27 (at http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ng.3259), also demonstrates how computer science and statistical methods may combine to aggregate and analyze very large -- and stunningly diverse -- genomic 'big-data' collections. Led by Olga Troyanskaya, deputy director for genomics at SCDA, the team collected and integrated data from about 38,000 genome-wide experiments (from an estimated 14,000 publications). These datasets necessarily contain not only information about cells' RNA/protein functions, but also information from individuals diagnosed with a variety of illnesses. Using integrative computational analysis, the researchers first isolated the functional genetic interconnections contained in these rich datasets for various tissue types. Then, combining that tissue-specific functional signal with the relevant disease's DNA-based genome-wide association studies (GWAS), the researchers were able to identify statistical associations between genes and diseases that would otherwise be undetectable. The resulting technique, which they called a 'network-guided association study' or NetWAS, thus integrates quantitative genetics with functional genomics to increase the power of GWAS and identify genes underlying complex human diseases. And because the technique is completely data-driven, NetWAS avoids bias toward better-studied genes and pathways, permitting discovery of novel associations. SCDA director Leslie Greengard says, "Olga and her collaborators have demonstrated that extraordinary results can be achieved by merging deep biological insight with state-of-the-art computational methods, and applying them to large-scale, noisy and heterogeneous datasets".    The result of their efforts was 144 functional gene interaction networks for organs as diverse as the kidney, the liver and the whole brain. The paper goes on to describe functional gene disruptions for diseases such as hypertension, diabetes and obesity. Importantly, while such functional gene interaction networks had already been established in animal models, this feat had not yet been accomplished -- and could not have been accomplished without 'big data'-- in human tissue. Many human cell types important to disease cannot be studied by traditional direct experimentation, so the ability to instead work with these rich datasets was a critical workaround. "A key challenge in human biology is that genetic circuits in human tissues and cell types are very difficult to study experimentally," says Troyanskaya, who also is a professor in the computer science department and the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics at Princeton University. "For example, the podocyte cells in the kidneys that perform the kidney's filtering function cannot be isolated for study in the lab, nor can the function of genes be identified by genome-scale experiments. Yet we need to understand how proteins interact in these cells if we want to understand and treat chronic kidney disease. Our approach mined these big data collections to build a map of how genetic circuits function in the podocyte cells, and in many other disease-relevant tissues and cell types." These findings have important implications for our understanding of normal gene function, but also for drug use and development: Causal or target genes may be better identified for treatment, and previously unexpected drug interactions and disruptions may be anticipated. "Biomedical researchers can use these networks and the pathways that they uncover to understand drug action and side effects in the context of specific disease-relevant tissues, and to repurpose drugs," Troyanskaya says. "These networks can also be useful for understanding how various therapies work and to help with developing new therapies." The researchers have also created an online resource so that other scientists may use NetWAS and access the tissue-specific networks. The team created an interactive server, the Genome-scale Integrated Analysis of Networks in Tissues, or GIANT. GIANT allows users to explore the networks, compare how genetic circuits vary across tissues, and analyze data from genetic studies to find genes that cause disease. Aaron K. Wong, a data scientist at SCDA and formerly a graduate student in the computer science department at Princeton, led the way in creating GIANT. "Our goal was to develop a resource that was accessible to biomedical researchers," he says. "For example, with GIANT, researchers studying Parkinson's disease can search the substantia nigra network, which represents the brain region affected by Parkinson's, to identify new genes and pathways involved in the disease." Wong is one of three co-first authors of the paper. The paper's other two co-first authors are Arjun Krishnan, a postdoctoral fellow at the Lewis-Sigler Institute; and Casey S. Greene, assistant professor of genetics at Dartmouth College, who was a postdoctoral fellow with the Troyanskaya group from 2009 to 2012. Other key collaborators on this study were Emanuela Ricciotti, Garret A. FitzGerald and Tilo Grosser of the pharmacology department and the Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania; Daniel I. Chasman of Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston; and Kara Dolinski at the Lewis-Sigler Institute at Princeton University. "This is an exciting time in biomedical research, and I believe we are still at the early stages of developing new ways to think about biological networks and their control," Greengard says. ### About the Simons Foundation and the Simons Center for Data Analysis The Simons Foundation is a private foundation based in New York City, incorporated in 1994 by Jim and Marilyn Simons. The foundation's mission is to advance the frontiers of research in mathematics and the basic sciences, sponsoring a range of programs that aim to promote a deeper understanding of our world. The foundation offers funding opportunities through its Mathematics and Physical Sciences, Life Science and Education & Outreach divisions, and its Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI) aims to improve the understanding, diagnosis and treatment of autism spectrum disorders. The Simons Center for Data Analysis (SCDA) was formed in 2013 with the purpose of developing innovative methods for examining large datasets. It aims to address the unsolved mathematical, statistical and computational questions whose resolution will illuminate the underlying science. The center is particularly interested in problems that present important long-term, systematic mathematical and computational challenges. simonsfoundation.org

URL: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-04/sf-otb042415.php

Contact Person: Anastasia Greenebaum (agreenebaum@simonsfoundation.org)

Professor Thomas Lengauer Receives Hector Science Prize

Prof.Thomas Lengauer, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Informatics in Saarbrücken, ISCB Vice President, has been awarded the Hector Science Prize. The Hector Foundation II herewith honors his achievements in the field of bioinformatics and his commitment to teaching in higher education. The prize of 150,000 euros is awarded annually to outstanding researchers at German universities. Professor Thomas Lengauer received the prize on January 30, 2015 along with Eva Grebel, Professor of Astronomy at Heidelberg University. This is the seventh time that the benefactor, Hans-Werner Hector, has recognized outstanding German researchers. The prize also includes the appointment as Fellow of the Hector Fellow Academy, which promotes interdisciplinary projects and academic networks. An important aspect of the Foundation is the promotion of particularly talented doctoral students, who can take the first steps to a scientific career under the mentorship of Hector Fellows. "I am looking forward to the interdisciplinary discussions in the Hector Fellow Academy," says Professor Lengauer, "as the key to many future breakthroughs in science lies at the interfaces of different disciplines." Lengauer is a Director at the Max Planck Institute for Informatics in Saarbrücken and an Honorary Professor at Saarland University and the University of Bonn. Since the 1990s, he has significantly contributed to the development of bioinformatics as a scientific discipline. Today, his research topics include computer-assisted analysis of the structure and interactions of proteins, computer-aided drug design, and the development of bioinformatic methods to better understand, diagnose, and treat diseases.

URL: http://zbi-www.bioinf.uni-sb.de/en/professor-thomas-lengauer-receives-hector-science-prize.html

Contact Person: Bertram Somieski (somieski(-at-)mpi-inf.mpg.de)