About Me

I work in the Division of Oncology at Washington University in St. Louis, where I develop and apply computational tools to give us insight into the origins and progression of cancer.

My core research interests include:

  • Cancer - studying the genomic alterations that result in tumorigenesis
  • The clonal architecture of tumors and how they evolve in response to therapy
  • Integrative analysis to place genomic aberrations into a functional context
  • Effective design and targeting of cancer immunotherapies
  • Developing open-source software for integrating, mining, and visualizing genomic data
  • Utilizing technology to drive science communication and collaboration

  • Education


    Publications


    * denotes shared first authorship

    Presentations

    • Genomic and Transcriptional evolution of AML at single-cell resolution
      Institute of Medical Informatics - Münster, Germany (2021)
    • Sequencing, Variant Calling, and Cancer Genomics
      Genomics Education Partnership (GEP) Workshop (2020)
    • Tumor Heterogeneity and Evolution
      Genomics in Medicine Seminar Series (2019)
    • Characterizing genomic responses to cancer immunotherapy
      Genome Informatics (2016)
    • Genomic insights into tumor evolution and therapy response
      Festival of Genomics Boston (2016)
    • Assessing tumor heterogeneity and tracking clonal clearance in response to therapy
      Genome Informatics (2015)
    • Ultra-deep whole-genome sequencing reveals clinically relevant low-frequency subclones in an acute myeloid leukemia
      The Cancer Genome Atlas Symposium (2014)
    • SciClone: Inferring clonal architecture and tracking the spatial and temporal patterns of tumor evolution and therapy resistance
      Personal Genomes & Pharmacogenomics (2013)
    • Multi-dimensional clustering of mutations from heterogeneous tumors offers insight into clonal architecture, tumor evolution, and response to therapy
      The Cancer Genome Atlas Steering Committee Meeting (2013)
    • Assessing Tumor Heterogeneity and Tracking Clonal Evolution Using Whole Genome or Exome Sequencing
      The Cancer Genome Atlas Scientific Symposium (2012) link
    • An Image Analytic Approach to Characterizing Vasculogenic Networks
      Presentation: Truman State University Student Research Symposium (2005)

    Teaching

    • Instructor - Advanced Sequencing Technologies & Bioinformatics Analysis, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory course (2021-)
    • Co-organizer - WUSTL Bioinformatics Workshop
      • full academic year course, developed curriculum, recruited faculty
      • delivered lectures on sequencing, informatics, somatic variant calling, bisulfite sequencing and analysis, bash, HPC/LSF/Docker, Tumor Heterogeneity, etc
    • Lecturer - High-Throughput Biology: From Sequence to Networks - CSHL/CBW Course (2019)
    • WUSTL Bioinformatics Workshops (2017-present)
      • Workshop Co-organizer
      • Lectures on Bash, Docker/LSF/HPC, DNA Alignment, Variant Calling, Tumor Heterogeneity, etc
    • Lecturer - Research Explorations in Genomics (2020)
    • Lecturer - Human Genetics (2019-20)
    • Lecturer - Computational Statistical Genetics (2017-19)
    • Lecturer - Investigating Eukaryotic Genomes (2015-2017)
    • Lecturer - Molecular Basis of Heredity (2015)
    • Computer Aided Discovery Methods (2007 and 2008)
      co-developer of the course and taught computational labs on:
      • Studies of genome variation
      • Transcriptional regulatory pathways
    • Computational Mathematics for Biomedical Scientists (2008)
      • Teaching Assistant
    • Advanced Topics: Quantitative Biology (2005)
      • Teaching Assistant

    Editorial

    Ad-hoc reviewer for Bioinformatics, Cancer Cell, Genome Biology, PLoS Computational Biology, Nucleic Acids Research, Nature Communications, BMC Evolutionary Biology.
    Grant reviewer for Dutch Cancer Society (KWF Kankerbestrijding)
    Grant reviewer for Siteman Cancer Center Investment Program