Axial Inventors

Scientist Stories: Fabian Theis, Machine Learning and Systems Biology

Fabian Theis conducts research in the field of computational biology. The main focus of his work is the application of machine learning methods to biological questions, in particular as a means of modeling cell heterogeneities on the basis of single cell analyses and also of integrating “omics” data into systems medicine approaches. Professor Theis received PhD degrees in physics and computer science in 2002 and 2003 respectively. After working as a postdoc in Regensburg, Tokyo and Tallahassee, he took up a position as Bernstein Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization in Göttingen. He then joined the German Research Center for Environmental Health, Helmholtz Zentrum München, where he was a group leader at the Institute for Bioinformatics and Systems Biology for six years. In 2009 he was became an Associate Professor at the Chair of Applied Mathematics, TUM. Since 2013 he has been a Full Professor of biomathematics at TUM, where he holds the Chair of Mathematical Modeling of Biological Systems, and director of the Institute of Computational Biology at the Helmholtz Zentrum München. https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=sqWpn2AAAAAJ&hl=en Axial Newsletter: https://axial.substack.com/ Build with Axial: https://build.axialvc.com/ https://linktr.ee/axialxyz

Scientist Stories: Jay Shendure, Advances in Genomics

Jay Shendure is a pioneer and leader in genomics who has developed new technologies that make DNA sequencing faster, cheaper, and more useful—work that is transforming genetics and medicine. Shendure’s innovations began with his doctorate in 2005, when he co-developed one of the first methods for massively parallel or next-generation DNA sequencing. After starting his own lab, he quickly advanced the technology to enable targeted sequencing of the exome—the genome’s protein-coding regions—a technique which is now in use by labs around the world and has resulted in deep catalogs of human genetic variation. In the process, Shendure showed how the technology can be used to identify genes that cause rare diseases, a strategy that has yielded hundreds of new gene discoveries. In 2012, Shendure’s lab introduced technologies that the reconstruction of the genome of a human fetus using “cell-free DNA,” obtained non-invasively from the parents. In 2016, they showed how patterns in cell-free DNA could potentially be used as part of a non-invasive cancer test. The Shendure lab’s most recent innovations include technologies for measuring the gene expression, the epigenome, and the ancestral histories of vast numbers of single cells in developing organisms. Collectively, the techniques and ongoing discoveries by Shendure and his lab hold great promise for advancing basic science and improving human health. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Shendure Axial Newsletter: https://axial.substack.com/ Build with Axial: https://build.axialvc.com/ https://linktr.ee/axialxyz

Scientist Stories: Leroy Hood, Systems Biology

A world-renowned scientist and recipient of the National Medal of Science in 2011, Dr. Leroy Hood co-founded the Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) in 2000, served as its first President from 2000-2017 and is a Professor and Chief Strategy Officer. In 2016, ISB affiliated with Providence where Dr. Hood now serves as Emeritus Science Advisor. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the National Academy of Medicine. Of the more than 6,000 scientists worldwide who belong to one or more of these academies, Dr. Hood is one of only 20 people elected to all three. He received his MD from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and his PhD in biochemistry from Caltech. Dr. Hood was a faculty member at Caltech from 1967-1992, serving for 10 years as the Chair of Biology. During this period, he and his colleagues developed four sequencer and synthesizer instruments that paved the way for the Human Genome Project’s successful mapping and understanding of the human genome. He and his students also deciphered many of the complex mechanisms of antibody diversification. In 1992, Dr. Hood founded and chaired the Department of Molecular Biotechnology at the University of Washington, the first academic department devoted to cross-disciplinary biology. Dr. Hood is currently carrying out studies in Alzheimer’s Disease, cancer, and wellness. He is pioneering a 1 million patient genome/phenome project, and is bringing scientific (quantitative) wellness to the contemporary U.S. health care system. Dr. Hood has played a role in founding 15 biotechnology companies including Amgen, Applied Biosystems, Arivale, and Nanostring. He has co-authored textbooks in biochemistry, immunology, molecular biology, genetics, and systems biology. In addition to having received 18 honorary degrees from prestigious universities in the U.S. and abroad, Dr. Hood has published more than 850 peer-reviewed articles and currently holds 36 patents. Dr. Hood is the recipient of numerous national and international awards, including the Lasker Award for Studies of Immune Diversity (1987), the Kyoto Prize in advanced technology (2002), the Heinz Award for pioneering work in Systems Biology (2006), the National Academy of Engineering Fritz J. and Delores H. Russ Prize for developing automated DNA sequencing (2011), and the National Academy of Science Award for Chemistry in Service to Society (2017). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leroy_Hood Axial Newsletter: https://axial.substack.com/ Build with Axial: https://build.axialvc.com/ https://linktr.ee/axialxyz

Scientist Stories: Nir Yosef, High-Throughput Genomics

Nir Yosef is an Associate Adjunct professor at the Department of EECS and a member of the Center for Computational Biology at UC Berkeley. He started his research group in January of 2014 after obtaining his PhD from Tel Aviv University and spending some time as a postdoc at the Broad Institute and Harvard Medical School. The overarching goal of his research is to utilize high-throughput genomic data sets, mostly based on DNA sequencing, in order to build models that explain how gene expression is regulated. He is especially interested in immune cells, covering various aspects of their biology, such as their differentiation, stability/ plasticity, and response to acute stimulation. https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=gSLAdnEAAAAJ Axial Newsletter: https://axial.substack.com/ Build with Axial: https://build.axialvc.com/ https://linktr.ee/axialxyz

Scientist Stories: Karl Deisseroth, Optogenetics and Neurology

Karl Deisseroth is the D.H. Chen Professor of Bioengineering and of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, and Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard, his PhD from Stanford, and his MD from Stanford. He also completed postdoctoral training, medical internship, and adult psychiatry residency at Stanford, and he is board-certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. He continues as a practicing psychiatrist at Stanford with specialization in affective disorders and autism-spectrum disease, employing medications along with neural stimulation. Over the last sixteen years, his laboratory created and developed optogenetics, hydrogel-tissue chemistry (beginning with CLARITY), and a broad range of enabling methods. He also has employed his technologies to discover the neural cell types and connections that cause adaptive and maladaptive behaviors, and has disseminated the technologies to thousands of laboratories around the world. Among other honors, Deisseroth was the sole recipient for optogenetics of the 2010 Koetser Prize, the 2010 Nakasone Prize, the 2011 Alden Spencer Prize, the 2013 Richard Lounsbery Prize, the 2014 Dickson Prize in Science, the 2015 Keio Prize, the 2015 Lurie Prize, the 2015 Albany Prize, the 2015 Dickson Prize in Medicine, the 2017 Redelsheimer Prize, the 2017 Fresenius Prize, the 2017 NOMIS Distinguished Scientist Award, the 2018 Eisenberg Prize, the 2018 Kyoto Prize, the 2020 Heineken Prize in Medicine from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the 2023 Japan Prize. For his discoveries, Deisseroth has also received the Perl Prize (2012), the BRAIN prize (2013), the Pasarow Prize (2013), the Breakthrough Prize (2015) the BBVA Award (2016), the Massry Prize (2016) and the Harvey Prize from the Technion/Israel (2017). He was selected a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator in 2013, and was elected to the US National Academy of Medicine in 2010, to the US National Academy of Sciences in 2012, and to the US National Academy of Engineering in 2019. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Deisseroth Axial Newsletter: https://axial.substack.com/ Build with Axial: https://build.axialvc.com/ https://linktr.ee/axialxyz