Knome Expands Scientific Advisory Board
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Knome, Inc., the human genome interpretation company, announced that it has expanded its scientific advisory board to include two respected experts in genomics, Dr. David Goldstein of Duke University and Dr. Yaniv Erlich of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research.
"We are very pleased to appoint two highly talented genomics experts to our scientific advisory board as we continue to pursue Knome's mission of improving lives by applying the scientific insights gained from the interpretation of human genomes," said Martin Tolar, Chief Executive Officer of Knome. "Drs. Goldstein and Erlich each offer incredibly valuable expertise as we pursue new opportunities in drug development and medicine. We look forward to their contributions this year and into the future."
Dr. David Goldstein is Professor of Molecular Genetics & Microbiology, Professor of Biology and Director of the Center for Human Genome Variation at Duke University. His work focuses on the use of modern genomics to help understand how human genetic variation influences disease. He received his PhD in Biological Sciences from Stanford University and was previously a professor of Genetics at University College London. In 2007, he was also appointed Honorary Professor at the Institute of Neurology at University College London in the UK.
Dr. Goldstein is the author of more than 175 scholarly publications in the areas of population and medical genetics. He is the recipient of one of the first seven nationally awarded Royal Society/Wolfson research merit awards in the UK for his work in human population genetics. Dr. Goldstein was awarded the Triangle Business Journal Health Care Heroes Award for Innovator/Researcher in March 2008.
"Knome has been visionary in its early anticipation of the importance of complete human sequence information and is poised to play a key role in helping to advance new ways to interpret genomic data and to assess the implications for diagnostics, drug response, and our understanding of the biology of disease," said Dr. Goldstein.
Dr. Yaniv Erlich is Andria and Paul Heady Family Fellow and Principal Investigator at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received a bachelor's degree from Tel-Aviv University at Israel and his PhD from the Watson School of Biological Sciences at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Dr. Erlich's research interests are computational human genetics. He has extensive experience in developing new algorithms for high throughputs sequencing and to detect disease genes. In two of his studies, he identified the genetic basis of devastating genetic disorders. His lab works on a wide range of topics including developing compressed sensing approach to identify rare genetic variations, devising new algorithms for personal genomics, and using Web 2.0 information for genetic studies.
Dr. Erlich is the recipient of the Harold M. Weintraub award, the IEEE/ACM-CS HPC award, Goldberg-Lindsay Fellowship, Wolf foundation scholarship for Excellence in exact science, and Emmanuel Ax scholarship, and he was selected as one of 2010 Tomorrow's PIs team of Genome Technology.
"The potential to apply genomic findings to clinical care represents an enormous opportunity. The challenge will be how best to interpret and deliver that information. I am extremely pleased to join the Knome advisory team to help guide and shape the company's role in the ongoing discovery of solutions to interpret human genomic information," said Dr. Erlich.
Knome's scientific advisory board is currently chaired by Dr. George Church, PhD, Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Center for Computational Genetics, and co-founder of Knome. Other members of the board include Lincoln Stein, MD/PhD, Professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and Platform Leader of Informatics and Biocomputing at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, and Anthony Sinskey, ScD, Professor of Microbiology and Health Sciences and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.