Faculty

The program involves over 20 core bioinformatics faculty leading research in:

  • Prediction of protein structure, function, interaction networks
  • Transcriptomics via RNAseq
  • Epigenomics (high-throughput methylation profiling)
  • Genome-wide association for disease genes
  • Stochastic network inference and modeling
  • Population genomics
  • Bayesian phylogenetics and comparative genomics
  • Genome evolution
  • Algorithmic development for high-throughput data-mining
Michael Alfaro (Computational) Diversification and Macroevolution, Evolutionary Morphology, Theoretical Phylogenetics, Reef Fish Molecular Systematics
Giovanni Coppola (Experimental) Genetic, epigenetic, and gene expression studies in neurodegenerative dementias (frontotemporal dementia, Alzheimer’s disease) and other neuropsychiatric diseases.
Joseph Distefano (Computational) Dynamic systems biology modeling
David Eisenberg (Experimental) Protein structure, folding and design.
Jason Ernst (Computational) Machine learning methods for the analysis of high-throughput experimental data to address problems in epigenomics and gene regulation.
Eleazar Eskin (Computational) Bioinformatics, Statistical Genetics, Genetic Basis of Complex Traits. (see seminar video: Integrated genomics approaches for analyzing complex traits in inbred mice; see another seminar video)
Guoping Fan (Experimental) Epigenetic mechanisms in neural development and stem cell regulation
Nelson Freimer (Experimental) Genetics of complex traits [neurobehavioral, metabolic, and infectious], population genomics, neurogenomics, primate systems biology and comparative evolution. Center for Neurobehavioral Genetics
Dan Geschwind (Experimental) application of network analyses, systems biology, and integration of multiple levels of data, to molecular pathways for nervous system function in health and disease
Thomas Graeber (Experimental) Systems Biology of Cancer Signaling
David Heckerman (Computational) Statistics and data analysis, machine learning, probability theory,decision theory, decision analysis, and artificial intelligence. Using graphical models for data analysis and visualization in biology and medicine with a special focus on the design of HIV vaccines and genome-wide association studies.
Stefan Horvath (Computational) Statistical analysis of DNA and tissue microarray data (see seminar video: Consensus eigengene networks: studying gene co‐expression modules and networks)
Steve Jacobsen (Experimental) Molecular genetics and genomics of DNA methylation patterning.
James Lake (Computational) Genomics and bioinformatics, including the evolution and origin of genomes (see seminar video)
Kenneth Lange (Computational) Human genetics, population biology, biomedical imaging, computational statistics, and applied stochastic processes
Christopher Lee (Computational) Bioinformatics, Genome Evolution, Alternative Splicing (see seminar video; more talks)
Huiying Li (Experimental) Human microbiome and diseases, Metagenomics, Bioinformatics, Systems biology
Kerchau Li (Computational) Bioinformatics, systems biology, High dimensional data analysis, network study, microarray gene expression, microRNA expression analysis, array CGH, biomarker, eQTL, Maldi-Seldi protein profile analysis (see seminar video: Liquid Association: a new bioinformatics tool for exploring gene expression data)
Jamie Lloyd-Smith (Computational) Ecological and evolutionary dynamics of infectious disease in animal and human populations, with emphasis on zoonotic and emerging pathogens.
Kirk Lohmueller (Computational) Development and application of statistical methods in evolutionary and medical genetics; learning about demographic history from genetic variation data; understanding natural selection.
Stanley Nelson (Experimental) Genomics approaches to human disease (see seminar video: Genomic approaches to human diseases: new tools and opportunities)
John Novembre (Computational) Computational methods in population genetics; human evolutionary genetics; genome evolution; population structure and adaptation (see seminar video: New results from studies of human and canid population genomics; A collective living stockpile of biological information: lessons and chellenges from population genomics)
Paivi Pajukanta (Experimental) Integration of genomics, transcriptomics and functional approaches to investigate human cardiovascular disease.
Bogdan Pasaniuc (Computational) Computational and statistical methods for understanding the genetic architecture of common diseases; analysis of large scale sequencing-based studies with a special emphasis on admixed populations.
Matteo Pellegrini (Computational) Computational methods to interpret genomic data (see seminar video)
Peipei Ping (Experimental) Proteome biology of cardiovascular diseases; cardiovascular proteome knowledgebase (www.heartproteome.org); informatics model systems for performing global proteomic analyses in human diseases; NHLBI Proteomics Center (www.nhlbi-ucla.org).
Kathrin Plath (Experimental) Epigenetic mechanisms of stem cell renewal, differentiation, and cancer
Janet Sinsheimer (Computational) Statistical methodology for mapping complex trait and disease genes and for understanding evolution
Marc Suchard (Computational) Stochastic processes in biology; Evolutionary medicine; Statistical computing (see seminar video)
Paul Thompson (Computational) Genetic Analysis of Massive Imaging Databases (http://www.loni.ucla.edu/~thompson/IG/IG.html),Mathematics of Images and Genomes (http://www.loni.ucla.edu/~thompson/MATH/math.html), ENIGMA Project (largest imaging-genetics study in the world) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crmk4UuSeEg&feature=plcp&list=PL7D3E6C9C8F233DD9), Analyzing Brain Connectivity Networks (http://www.loni.ucla.edu/~thompson/MEDIA/AUT/AUT-PR.html)
Zhuowen Tu (Computational) Medical Imaging, Machine Learning, Statistical modeling/computing, and Computer Vision
Wei Wang (Computational) Data mining, computational genetics, protein structure analysis, protein protein interaction networks.
Xinshu Grace Xiao (Computational) Computational and Systems Biology of Pre-mRNA Splicing and Gene Expression
Yi Xing (Computational/Experimental) Computational and statistical methods for elucidating transcriptome complexity and post-transcriptional RNA processing; evolution and genetic diversity of transcriptome regulation; genomics and bioinformatics of pre-mRNA alternative splicing and polyadenylation; RNA regulatory networks in development and disease.
Xia Yang (Computational/experimental) Integrative Genomics and Systems Biology of Common Metabolic Disorders
Todd Yeates (Computational) Structures of large protein assemblies, including the carboxysome and other bacterial microcompartment shells; applications of geometry and topology to proteins; discovery of protein function through comparative genomics. (see seminar video)
Qing Zhou (Computational) Computational biology, Monte Carlo methods and Bayesian statistics (see seminar video: Model Discovery via Contrasting Sequence Sets with Applications to Genome-wide Binding Data; Extracting sequence features to predict protein-DNA interactions)