BMI Faculty by Research Area


Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine

Pattern recognition on clinical data has enabled the development of predictive models for diagnosis and prognosis of human disease. However, the predictive power of these models can be enhanced with genetic data that are increasingly being generated via high throughput technologies, and more recently via whole-genome sequencing. Integrating clinical and molecular data to build, evaluate, and implement accurate prediction models for personalized medicine is a new exciting field of research for biomedical informatics specialists. The impact of personalized medicine on patient outcomes is only beginning to be understood, and this burgeoning area of research and development requires skills in computer science, statistics, and life sciences.


Email: l2alexandrov@health.ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 246-2747

Ludmil Alexandrov

Associate Professor, Cellular and Molecular Medicine
Associate Professor, Bioengineering
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Quantitative Foundations of Computational Biology
  • Comparative and Population Genomics
  • Genetic and Molecular Networks
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Biomedical Natural Language Processing

Research Focus: Using large-scale omics data to study mutational processes causing human cancer, identifying potential cancer prevention strategies with ML and NLP approaches, and developing novel ML tools for better targeting of cancer treatment.


Email: hkcarter@health.ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 822-4706

Hannah Carter

Associate Professor, Division of Genomics and Precision Medicine
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Genetic and Molecular Networks
  • Structural Bioinformatics and Systems Pharmacology
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: Genomics and systems biology for precision cancer medicine, variant interpretation, network analysis, immunogenomics


Email: lukaschavez@health.ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 952-3775

Lukas Chavez

Associate Professor, Sanford Burnham Prebys
Associate Adjunct Professor, Division of Genomics and Precision Medicine
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Quantitative Foundations of Computational Biology
  • Epigenomics and Gene Expression Control
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: Genomic and Epigenomic Alterations in Childhood Cancers


Email: chc101@ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 822-3865

Chi-Hua Chen

Associate Adjunct Professor, Radiology
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Comparative and Population Genomics
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: Neuroimaging genetics, neuropsychiatric disorders


Email: kcurtius@health.ucsd.edu

Kit Curtius

Assistant Professor, Biomedical Informatics
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Quantitative Foundations of Computational Biology
  • Epigenomics and Gene Expression Control
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: Mathematical models of cancer evolution, optimization of cancer screening and surveillance, epigenetic aging, translational risk prediction tools


Email: madantonio@health.ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 822-4368

Matteo D'Antonio

Assistant Professor, Biomedical Informatics
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Comparative and Population Genomics
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Biomedical Natural Language Processing

Research Focus: Combining genome-wide association studies and polygenic risk scores with environmental variables, lifestyle and social determinants of health to predict disease risk using machine learning and deep learning methods. Using large language models to predict disease


Email: tal.einav@lji.org

Tal Einav

Assistant Professor, La Jolla Institute for Immunology
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Quantitative Foundations of Computational Biology
  • Dynamical Systems, Stochastic Processes, and Biological Circuits
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: Antibody-virus interactions, predicting each person's vaccine response, personalized medicine


Email: relkareh@ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 822-7776

Robert El-Kareh

Clinical Professor, Biomedical Informatics
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Decision Support Systems

Research Focus: Clinical informatics, clinical decision support, diagnostic safety, quality improvement, patient safety


Email: ragabriel@ucsd.edu

Rodney Gabriel

Associate Professor, School of Medicine
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine

Research Focus: Perioperative outcomes, pharmacogenomics, machine learning, predictive modeling, regional anesthesia, acute pain.


Email: gage@salk.edu
Phone: (858) 453-4100

Fred (Rusty) Gage

President, Salk Institute for Biological Studies
Professor, Laboratory of Genetics, Salk Institute for Biological Studies
Adjunct Professor, Biological Sciences
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Epigenomics and Gene Expression Control
  • Dynamical Systems, Stochastic Processes, and Biological Circuits
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: Adult central nervous system, Neurogenesis, Modeling neurondegenerative & neuropsychiatric disorders, Neuronal mosaicism & diversity, Human evolution; Somatic retrotransposition, LINE-1, & Alu


Email: jogleeson@ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 822-3535

Joseph Gleeson

Professor, Neurosciences (School of Medicine)
Director of Neurogenetics, Rady Children's Institute for Genomic Medicine
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Comparative and Population Genomics
  • Genetic and Molecular Networks
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: Autism, Whole genome sequencing, Epigenome, Single cell sequencing, Gene-environment interactions, Somatic mosaicism, Systems biology, Protein interactions


Email: jkoola@ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 246-2563

Jejo Koola

Assistant Clinical Professor, Biomedical Informatics
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Biomedical Natural Language Processing

Research Focus: Practicing internist in the field of hospital medicine and clinical informatics. Research focus is on using informatics tools (including predictive analytics, natural language processing, and information visualization) to improve the care of multi-morbid hospital patients.


Email: tskuo@ucsd.edu

Tsung-Ting Kuo

Assistant Professor, Biomedical Informatics
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Privacy Technology, Data Sharing, and Big Data Analytics

Research Focus: Blockchain Technologies, Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing


Email: amajithia@ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 822-0727

Amit Majithia

Associate Professor, School of Medicine
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Comparative and Population Genomics
  • Proteomics and Metabolomics
  • Genetic and Molecular Networks
  • Dynamical Systems, Stochastic Processes, and Biological Circuits
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Decision Support Systems
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: Insulin resistance, functional genomics, pharmacogenetics, cardiometabolic disease, diabetes


Email: amcculloch@ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 534-2547

Andrew McCulloch

Professor, Bioengineering
Professor, School of Medicine
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Quantitative Foundations of Computational Biology
  • Dynamical Systems, Stochastic Processes, and Biological Circuits
  • Structural Bioinformatics and Systems Pharmacology
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: Multi-scale biology of heart and musculoskeletal system to elucidate the biological principles underlying heart failure, congenital heart disease, arrhythmia and elite human performance


Email: jmesirov@health.ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 534-5096

Jill Mesirov

Professor, School of Medicine
Associate Vice Chancellor, Computational Health Sciences,
Professor of Medicine, Division of Genomics and Precision Medicine
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Quantitative Foundations of Computational Biology
  • Genetic and Molecular Networks
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: Algorithms and analytic methodologies for pattern recognition and discovery with applications to cancer genomics, to better diagnose, stratify, and treat patients. Development of biologist-friendly biomedical software tools.


Email: snemati@health.ucsd.edu

Shamim Nemati

Associate Professor, Biomedical Informatics
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Dynamical Systems, Stochastic Processes, and Biological Circuits
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Decision Support Systems

Research Focus: Signal Processing, Dynamical Systems, Multivariate Time Series, Point Process, Deep Learning, Reinforcement Learning, Video Processing, and Natural Language Processing


Email: machado@ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 822-4931

Lucila Ohno-Machado

Professor, Biomedical Informatics
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Epigenomics and Gene Expression Control
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Privacy Technology, Data Sharing, and Big Data Analytics

Research Focus: Biomedical Informatics, predictive modeling, biomedical data analytics


Email: bpeters@lji.org
Phone: (858) 752-6914

Bjoern Peters

Professor, La Jolla Institute for Immunology
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Quantitative Foundations of Computational Biology
  • Dynamical Systems, Stochastic Processes, and Biological Circuits
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Privacy Technology, Data Sharing, and Big Data Analytics
  • Data Models and Knowledge Representation
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: Immunology, Adapative Immunity, Epitopes, Knowledge Representation, Infectious Disease, Cancer, Allergy, Autoimmunity, Machine Learning, Big Data, Systems Biology


Email: sanchezroige@ucsd.edu
Phone: (619) 874-1426

Sandra Sanchez-Roige

Associate Professor, Psychiatry
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Genetic and Molecular Networks
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Biomedical Natural Language Processing
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: Our research aims to advance precision psychiatry using genetic, genomic, medical bioinformatic, and cross-species translational approaches.


Email: jsebat@ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 534-6526

Jonathan Sebat

Director, Beyster Center for Molecular Genomics of Neuropsychiatric Diseases; Professor of Psychiatry and Cellular & Molecular Medicine, Cellular and Molecular Medicine
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Comparative and Population Genomics
  • Epigenomics and Gene Expression Control
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: Human Genetics, Statistical Genetics, Whole genome sequencing, Long Read Sequencing. Autism, Genetic Therapies for Neurological Disease


Email: asitapati@ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 822-4931

Amy Sitapati

Clinical Professor, Biomedical Informatics
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Privacy Technology, Data Sharing, and Big Data Analytics
  • Data Models and Knowledge Representation
  • Decision Support Systems

Research Focus: Biomedical Informatics, Registries, Population Health, Precision Medicine, Vital Records Informatics, Artificial Intelligence, Quality Informatics, Health Analytics


Email: dwodarz@ucsd.edu
Phone: (949) 422-7155

Dominik Wodarz

Professor, Biological Sciences
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Quantitative Foundations of Computational Biology
  • Dynamical Systems, Stochastic Processes, and Biological Circuits
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine

Research Focus: Mathematical models of infectious diseases, virus-immune system interactions, carcinogenesis, and cancer therapy; Evolutionary theory and evolutionary dynamics.


Email: roseyu@ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 246-4724

Rose Yu

Assistant Professor, Computer Science and Engineering
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Quantitative Foundations of Computational Biology
  • Dynamical Systems, Stochastic Processes, and Biological Circuits
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Decision Support Systems

Research Focus: Machine learning, spatiotemporal modeling, deep learning, dynamical systems


Email: kzengler@ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 504-0823

Karsten Zengler

Professor, Pediatrics
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Quantitative Foundations of Computational Biology
  • Dynamical Systems, Stochastic Processes, and Biological Circuits
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Privacy Technology, Data Sharing, and Big Data Analytics
  • Data Models and Knowledge Representation
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: Our lab studies microbe-microbe and host-microbe interactions. The goals are i) to predict how complex systems react to perturbations and ii) to design strategies to change the trajectory.


Privacy Technology, Data Sharing, and Big Data Analytics

Whole genome sequences from humans are increasingly being collected for clinical care. Dealing with personal health information requires full compliance with current regulations designed to protect individual privacy. Technologies to preserve privacy in disclosed data allow broader, safer sharing of health information for research and healthcare quality improvement. The rapid collection of data from electronic health records has promoted greater awareness of the need to combine technology and privacy solutions for data sharing. Building accurate predictive models that utilize these data will only be possible if these data can be shared in a privacy-protecting manner, hence the field of privacy technology has been experiencing enormous growth in the past few years, represented by a range of innovations in both theory and applications.


Email: tskuo@ucsd.edu

Tsung-Ting Kuo

Assistant Professor, Biomedical Informatics
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Privacy Technology, Data Sharing, and Big Data Analytics

Research Focus: Blockchain Technologies, Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing


Email: machado@ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 822-4931

Lucila Ohno-Machado

Professor, Biomedical Informatics
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Epigenomics and Gene Expression Control
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Privacy Technology, Data Sharing, and Big Data Analytics

Research Focus: Biomedical Informatics, predictive modeling, biomedical data analytics


Email: bpeters@lji.org
Phone: (858) 752-6914

Bjoern Peters

Professor, La Jolla Institute for Immunology
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Quantitative Foundations of Computational Biology
  • Dynamical Systems, Stochastic Processes, and Biological Circuits
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Privacy Technology, Data Sharing, and Big Data Analytics
  • Data Models and Knowledge Representation
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: Immunology, Adapative Immunity, Epitopes, Knowledge Representation, Infectious Disease, Cancer, Allergy, Autoimmunity, Machine Learning, Big Data, Systems Biology


Email: asitapati@ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 822-4931

Amy Sitapati

Clinical Professor, Biomedical Informatics
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Privacy Technology, Data Sharing, and Big Data Analytics
  • Data Models and Knowledge Representation
  • Decision Support Systems

Research Focus: Biomedical Informatics, Registries, Population Health, Precision Medicine, Vital Records Informatics, Artificial Intelligence, Quality Informatics, Health Analytics


Email: kzengler@ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 504-0823

Karsten Zengler

Professor, Pediatrics
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Quantitative Foundations of Computational Biology
  • Dynamical Systems, Stochastic Processes, and Biological Circuits
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Privacy Technology, Data Sharing, and Big Data Analytics
  • Data Models and Knowledge Representation
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: Our lab studies microbe-microbe and host-microbe interactions. The goals are i) to predict how complex systems react to perturbations and ii) to design strategies to change the trajectory.


Data Models and Knowledge Representation

Because research is multi-institutional and lots of data are required to recognize meaningful patterns, it is important to harmonize data collected at different institutions through the use of appropriate data models. Developing automated ontology mapping tools and structuring data and knowledge in a computable format are important pillars of biomedical computing. Although strategies have been developing for several years, before the advent of big healthcare data the need for and efficacy of innovative approaches were not fully appreciated by the biomedical scientific community. Research on data models and representation frameworks has permitted the combination of data from several sources for analytics that support a variety of applications, including decision support systems.


Email: mihogarth@ucsd.edu

Michael Hogarth

Clinical Professor, Biomedical Informatics
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Data Models and Knowledge Representation
  • Biomedical Natural Language Processing

Research Focus: Development of next generation public health information systems, terminology/ontology infrastructure in biomedical informatics, and developing systems that support clinical research at the point of care.


Email: bpeters@lji.org
Phone: (858) 752-6914

Bjoern Peters

Professor, La Jolla Institute for Immunology
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Quantitative Foundations of Computational Biology
  • Dynamical Systems, Stochastic Processes, and Biological Circuits
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Privacy Technology, Data Sharing, and Big Data Analytics
  • Data Models and Knowledge Representation
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: Immunology, Adapative Immunity, Epitopes, Knowledge Representation, Infectious Disease, Cancer, Allergy, Autoimmunity, Machine Learning, Big Data, Systems Biology


Email: asitapati@ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 822-4931

Amy Sitapati

Clinical Professor, Biomedical Informatics
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Privacy Technology, Data Sharing, and Big Data Analytics
  • Data Models and Knowledge Representation
  • Decision Support Systems

Research Focus: Biomedical Informatics, Registries, Population Health, Precision Medicine, Vital Records Informatics, Artificial Intelligence, Quality Informatics, Health Analytics


Email: kzengler@ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 504-0823

Karsten Zengler

Professor, Pediatrics
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Quantitative Foundations of Computational Biology
  • Dynamical Systems, Stochastic Processes, and Biological Circuits
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Privacy Technology, Data Sharing, and Big Data Analytics
  • Data Models and Knowledge Representation
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: Our lab studies microbe-microbe and host-microbe interactions. The goals are i) to predict how complex systems react to perturbations and ii) to design strategies to change the trajectory.


Decision Support Systems

Clinicians and biomedical researchers are often overwhelmed with information and may have difficulties in translating information into actions that have a direct or indirect effect on biomedical knowledge and human health. The design and implementation of effective decision support systems to assist biomedical researchers and/or clinicians perform their tasks in a well-informed manner have the potential to change the biomedical research is conducted and way medicine is practiced. Deep understanding of computational challenges for specific applications areas is required for the assembly of multi-disciplinary teams that can build effective decision support systems.


Email: relkareh@ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 822-7776

Robert El-Kareh

Clinical Professor, Biomedical Informatics
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Decision Support Systems

Research Focus: Clinical informatics, clinical decision support, diagnostic safety, quality improvement, patient safety


Email: amajithia@ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 822-0727

Amit Majithia

Associate Professor, School of Medicine
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Comparative and Population Genomics
  • Proteomics and Metabolomics
  • Genetic and Molecular Networks
  • Dynamical Systems, Stochastic Processes, and Biological Circuits
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Decision Support Systems
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: Insulin resistance, functional genomics, pharmacogenetics, cardiometabolic disease, diabetes


Email: snemati@health.ucsd.edu

Shamim Nemati

Associate Professor, Biomedical Informatics
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Dynamical Systems, Stochastic Processes, and Biological Circuits
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Decision Support Systems

Research Focus: Signal Processing, Dynamical Systems, Multivariate Time Series, Point Process, Deep Learning, Reinforcement Learning, Video Processing, and Natural Language Processing


Email: asitapati@ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 822-4931

Amy Sitapati

Clinical Professor, Biomedical Informatics
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Privacy Technology, Data Sharing, and Big Data Analytics
  • Data Models and Knowledge Representation
  • Decision Support Systems

Research Focus: Biomedical Informatics, Registries, Population Health, Precision Medicine, Vital Records Informatics, Artificial Intelligence, Quality Informatics, Health Analytics


Email: roseyu@ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 246-4724

Rose Yu

Assistant Professor, Computer Science and Engineering
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Quantitative Foundations of Computational Biology
  • Dynamical Systems, Stochastic Processes, and Biological Circuits
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Decision Support Systems

Research Focus: Machine learning, spatiotemporal modeling, deep learning, dynamical systems


Biomedical Natural Language Processing

The wide adoption of electronic health records (EHR) is important for proper collection data that can be used in further computation. However, most of the EHR information is still presented in narrative form. Systems that can understand the language in these documents and structure the data for computation are critical for data analysis and predictive modeling that serve as bases for decision support systems. Natural language processing techniques derived for non-biomedical texts do not always work in biomedical text. For this reason, specialized biomedical natural language processing is necessary and constitutes an important area of research and development in biomedical informatics.


Email: l2alexandrov@health.ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 246-2747

Ludmil Alexandrov

Associate Professor, Cellular and Molecular Medicine
Associate Professor, Bioengineering
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Quantitative Foundations of Computational Biology
  • Comparative and Population Genomics
  • Genetic and Molecular Networks
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Biomedical Natural Language Processing

Research Focus: Using large-scale omics data to study mutational processes causing human cancer, identifying potential cancer prevention strategies with ML and NLP approaches, and developing novel ML tools for better targeting of cancer treatment.


Email: madantonio@health.ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 822-4368

Matteo D'Antonio

Assistant Professor, Biomedical Informatics
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Comparative and Population Genomics
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Biomedical Natural Language Processing

Research Focus: Combining genome-wide association studies and polygenic risk scores with environmental variables, lifestyle and social determinants of health to predict disease risk using machine learning and deep learning methods. Using large language models to predict disease


Email: mihogarth@ucsd.edu

Michael Hogarth

Clinical Professor, Biomedical Informatics
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Data Models and Knowledge Representation
  • Biomedical Natural Language Processing

Research Focus: Development of next generation public health information systems, terminology/ontology infrastructure in biomedical informatics, and developing systems that support clinical research at the point of care.


Email: jkoola@ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 246-2563

Jejo Koola

Assistant Clinical Professor, Biomedical Informatics
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Biomedical Natural Language Processing

Research Focus: Practicing internist in the field of hospital medicine and clinical informatics. Research focus is on using informatics tools (including predictive analytics, natural language processing, and information visualization) to improve the care of multi-morbid hospital patients.


Email: sanchezroige@ucsd.edu
Phone: (619) 874-1426

Sandra Sanchez-Roige

Associate Professor, Psychiatry
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Genetic and Molecular Networks
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Biomedical Natural Language Processing
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: Our research aims to advance precision psychiatry using genetic, genomic, medical bioinformatic, and cross-species translational approaches.


Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Human disease is a result of genetic and environmental factors. New bioinformatics algorithms can be applied to a combination of genetic, clinical, and environmental factors to help understand disease processes and build predictive models for diagnosis and/or prognosis. Given the heterogeneity of data that are involved, specialized training is necessary to allow innovation in the integration, analysis, and sharing of human subject data related to health and disease.


Email: tamariutabartell@ucsd.edu

Tiffany Amariuta

Assistant Professor, Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute
Assistant Professor, Biomedical Informatics
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Comparative and Population Genomics
  • Epigenomics and Gene Expression Control
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: We are a statistical genetics lab focusing on developing methods to study complex traits and polygenic diseases in global populations. We are specifically interested in fine-mapping disease genes and their cell types of action, with the goal of finding targets for gene-based therapeutics.


Email: ferhatay@lji.org
Phone: (858) 752-6612

Ferhat Ay

Associate Professor, La Jolla Institute for Immunology
Assistant Adjunct Professor, Pediatrics
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Epigenomics and Gene Expression Control
  • Genetic and Molecular Networks
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: Epigenetics, genomics, chromatin structure, 3D/4D genome/nucleome, statistical methods for analysis of Hi-C and HiChIP data, gene regulation in immune cells, cancer genomics


Email: cbenner@ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 534-9449

Christopher Benner

Assistant Professor, School of Medicine
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Epigenomics and Gene Expression Control
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: Transcription, bioinformatics, genomics, innate immunity, chromatin.
We use next-generation sequencing (NGS) and computational analysis to understand the mechanisms responsible for transcription and epigenetic regulation in human development and disease.


Email: hkcarter@health.ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 822-4706

Hannah Carter

Associate Professor, Division of Genomics and Precision Medicine
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Genetic and Molecular Networks
  • Structural Bioinformatics and Systems Pharmacology
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: Genomics and systems biology for precision cancer medicine, variant interpretation, network analysis, immunogenomics


Email: lukaschavez@health.ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 952-3775

Lukas Chavez

Associate Professor, Sanford Burnham Prebys
Associate Adjunct Professor, Division of Genomics and Precision Medicine
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Quantitative Foundations of Computational Biology
  • Epigenomics and Gene Expression Control
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: Genomic and Epigenomic Alterations in Childhood Cancers


Email: chc101@ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 822-3865

Chi-Hua Chen

Associate Adjunct Professor, Radiology
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Comparative and Population Genomics
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: Neuroimaging genetics, neuropsychiatric disorders


Email: hiuchu@ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 534-2808

Hiutung Chu

Assistant Professor, Pathology
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Quantitative Foundations of Computational Biology
  • Comparative and Population Genomics
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: host-microbe interactions; gut microbiome; host genetic factors in immunity


Email: hcookandersen@ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 246-2805

Heidi Cook-Andersen

Assistant Professor, Biological Sciences
Assistant Professor, Reproductive Medicine
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Epigenomics and Gene Expression Control
  • Genetic and Molecular Networks
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: We integrate computational, epigenetic, RNA, and chromatin biology approaches in human, mouse and stem cell models to understand the earliest stages of development -- from the fully differentiated oocyte to the totipotent embryo and successful implantation of the human blastocyst.


Email: kcurtius@health.ucsd.edu

Kit Curtius

Assistant Professor, Biomedical Informatics
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Quantitative Foundations of Computational Biology
  • Epigenomics and Gene Expression Control
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: Mathematical models of cancer evolution, optimization of cancer screening and surveillance, epigenetic aging, translational risk prediction tools


Email: tal.einav@lji.org

Tal Einav

Assistant Professor, La Jolla Institute for Immunology
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Quantitative Foundations of Computational Biology
  • Dynamical Systems, Stochastic Processes, and Biological Circuits
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: Antibody-virus interactions, predicting each person's vaccine response, personalized medicine


Email: kafrazer@health.ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 246-0208

Kelly Frazer

Professor, Pediatrics
Director, Institute for Genomic Medicine
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Epigenomics and Gene Expression Control
  • Genetic and Molecular Networks
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: Using iPSCs for genetic analyses, GWAS, QTL analyses, bioinformatic approaches to understanding human disease, single-cell analyses


Email: tgaasterland@ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 822-4600

Terry Gaasterland

Professor, Scripps Institution of Oceanography
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Comparative and Population Genomics
  • Epigenomics and Gene Expression Control
  • Genetic and Molecular Networks
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: Computational Analysis of Human, Novel, and Microbial Genomes: Impact of genetic and evolutionary variation on regulation of transcription and on protein domain structure and function. Causal variants leading to dysregulated cellular response to environmental stresses.


Email: gage@salk.edu
Phone: (858) 453-4100

Fred (Rusty) Gage

President, Salk Institute for Biological Studies
Professor, Laboratory of Genetics, Salk Institute for Biological Studies
Adjunct Professor, Biological Sciences
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Epigenomics and Gene Expression Control
  • Dynamical Systems, Stochastic Processes, and Biological Circuits
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: Adult central nervous system, Neurogenesis, Modeling neurondegenerative & neuropsychiatric disorders, Neuronal mosaicism & diversity, Human evolution; Somatic retrotransposition, LINE-1, & Alu


Email: jogleeson@ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 822-3535

Joseph Gleeson

Professor, Neurosciences (School of Medicine)
Director of Neurogenetics, Rady Children's Institute for Genomic Medicine
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Comparative and Population Genomics
  • Genetic and Molecular Networks
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: Autism, Whole genome sequencing, Epigenome, Single cell sequencing, Gene-environment interactions, Somatic mosaicism, Systems biology, Protein interactions


Email: hsiao@ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 657-6650

Albert Hsiao

Professor in Residence, Radiology
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Comparative and Population Genomics
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: Artificial Intelligence, Cardiovascular, COVID-19, x-ray, CT, MRI, Point-of-care Ultrasound


Email: lilyak@ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 822-1878

Lilia Iakoucheva

Professor, Psychiatry
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Genetic and Molecular Networks
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: Autism, genetics, gene expression, protein interactions, systems biology, networks, psychiatric diseases, whole genome sequencing


Email: mjain@ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 822-5854

Mohit Jain

Associate Professor, Pharmacology
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Proteomics and Metabolomics
  • Genetic and Molecular Networks
  • Structural Bioinformatics and Systems Pharmacology
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: Human Biology, Metabolic Biochemistry, Integrative Biology, Mass Spectrometry, Metabolomics


Email: smkaech@ucsd.edu

Susan Kaech

Professor, Salk Institute for Biological Studies
Adjunct Professor, Biological Sciences
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Proteomics and Metabolomics
  • Epigenomics and Gene Expression Control
  • Genetic and Molecular Networks
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: Understanding how Memory T Cells are produced during infection and vaccination


Email: amajithia@ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 822-0727

Amit Majithia

Associate Professor, School of Medicine
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Comparative and Population Genomics
  • Proteomics and Metabolomics
  • Genetic and Molecular Networks
  • Dynamical Systems, Stochastic Processes, and Biological Circuits
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Decision Support Systems
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: Insulin resistance, functional genomics, pharmacogenetics, cardiometabolic disease, diabetes


Email: amcculloch@ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 534-2547

Andrew McCulloch

Professor, Bioengineering
Professor, School of Medicine
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Quantitative Foundations of Computational Biology
  • Dynamical Systems, Stochastic Processes, and Biological Circuits
  • Structural Bioinformatics and Systems Pharmacology
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: Multi-scale biology of heart and musculoskeletal system to elucidate the biological principles underlying heart failure, congenital heart disease, arrhythmia and elite human performance


Email: jmesirov@health.ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 534-5096

Jill Mesirov

Professor, School of Medicine
Associate Vice Chancellor, Computational Health Sciences,
Professor of Medicine, Division of Genomics and Precision Medicine
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Quantitative Foundations of Computational Biology
  • Genetic and Molecular Networks
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: Algorithms and analytic methodologies for pattern recognition and discovery with applications to cancer genomics, to better diagnose, stratify, and treat patients. Development of biologist-friendly biomedical software tools.


Email: niema@ucsd.edu

Niema Moshiri

Associate Teaching Professor, Computer Science and Engineering
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Quantitative Foundations of Computational Biology
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: Computational viral epidemiology, phylogenetics, models of sequence and tree evolution, Massive Adaptive Interactive Text (MAIT) development


Email: bpeters@lji.org
Phone: (858) 752-6914

Bjoern Peters

Professor, La Jolla Institute for Immunology
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Quantitative Foundations of Computational Biology
  • Dynamical Systems, Stochastic Processes, and Biological Circuits
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Privacy Technology, Data Sharing, and Big Data Analytics
  • Data Models and Knowledge Representation
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: Immunology, Adapative Immunity, Epitopes, Knowledge Representation, Infectious Disease, Cancer, Allergy, Autoimmunity, Machine Learning, Big Data, Systems Biology


Email: sanchezroige@ucsd.edu
Phone: (619) 874-1426

Sandra Sanchez-Roige

Associate Professor, Psychiatry
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Genetic and Molecular Networks
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Biomedical Natural Language Processing
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: Our research aims to advance precision psychiatry using genetic, genomic, medical bioinformatic, and cross-species translational approaches.


Email: jsebat@ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 534-6526

Jonathan Sebat

Director, Beyster Center for Molecular Genomics of Neuropsychiatric Diseases; Professor of Psychiatry and Cellular & Molecular Medicine, Cellular and Molecular Medicine
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Comparative and Population Genomics
  • Epigenomics and Gene Expression Control
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: Human Genetics, Statistical Genetics, Whole genome sequencing, Long Read Sequencing. Autism, Genetic Therapies for Neurological Disease


Email: vijay@lji.org

Pandurangan Vijayanand

Professor, La Jolla Institute for Immunology
Associate Adjunct Professor, School of Medicine
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Comparative and Population Genomics
  • Epigenomics and Gene Expression Control
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: Continually evolving genomic tools and single cell analysis technologies are revolutionizing our understanding of the human immune system in health and disease.


Email: jwertheim@health.ucsd.edu
Phone: (619) 543-5069

Joel Wertheim

Associate Professor, School of Medicine
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Genetic and Molecular Networks
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: Molecular epidemiology of HIV, SARS-CoV-2, and other RNA viruses; Viral phylogenetics and evolution


Email: kzengler@ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 504-0823

Karsten Zengler

Professor, Pediatrics
BISB Research Area(s):
  • Quantitative Foundations of Computational Biology
  • Dynamical Systems, Stochastic Processes, and Biological Circuits
BMI Research Area(s):
  • Predictive Modeling and Personalized Medicine
  • Privacy Technology, Data Sharing, and Big Data Analytics
  • Data Models and Knowledge Representation
  • Bioinformatics Applications in Human Disease

Research Focus: Our lab studies microbe-microbe and host-microbe interactions. The goals are i) to predict how complex systems react to perturbations and ii) to design strategies to change the trajectory.


Other BMI Research Areas


Email: krking@ucsd.edu

Kevin King

Associate Professor, School of Medicine
Associate Professor, Bioengineering
BISB Research Area(s):
  • TBD
BMI Research Area(s):
  • TBD

Research Focus: The King Lab studies diseases in which the immune system becomes activated even though there is no infection, such as heart attacks, metabolic disease, autoimmunity, or cancer. He combines conventional biological methods with novel bioengineering techniques to develop therapies that limit organ dysfunction and promote healing, repair and regeneration.


Email: pkosuri@salk.edu

Pallav Kosuri

Assistant Professor, Salk Institute for Biological Studies
BISB Research Area(s):
  • TBD
BMI Research Area(s):
  • TBD

Research Focus: The Kosuri Lab studies how movement gives rise to biological function across scales, from molecular motors to muscles. We take a cross-disciplinary approach that makes use of molecular design, computational methods, and functional imaging.


Email: jschoeneberg@ucsd.edu

Johannes Schoeneberg

Assistant Professor, Pharmacology
Assistant Professor, Chemistry and Biochemistry
BISB Research Area(s):
  • TBD
BMI Research Area(s):
  • TBD

Research Focus: Our group uses experimental and computational approaches to study the link between mitochondrial dynamics and neurological diseases that are caused by mitochondrial dysfunction, using 4D adaptive optics lattice light-sheet microscopy, brain organoids, human induced pluripotent stem cells, and machine learning.