Dr Tom Oldfield Joins Dotmatics as Principal Software Architect

Dotmatics has announced the addition of Tom Oldfield, PhD, to its Solutions Development team. Dr Oldfield joins Dotmatics as Principal Software Architect from EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) where he was the Head of Databases and Services in the Protein Databank in Europe. He will have a pivotal role in the continuous expansion of Dotmatics’ informatics solutions portfolio in biology and big data analytics.

“My great interest is big data analytics, including complex visualization methods and unravelling information within biological datasets. Vortex, Browser and Studies are innovative solutions that provide the perfect platform to implement new ideas in these areas” said Dr Oldfield. “I am hoping to have great fun exploring, developing and implementing new concepts together with the exceptional Dotmatics team.”

Tom’s remarkable career began with his PhD under Professor Roderick Hubbard at York University where he worked in Protein Crystallography and Simulations. Subsequently, he did his postdoctoral work for GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) focused on graphical software development and protein structure crystallography.

Later he spent over 8 years at Accelrys (now BIOVIA, a Dassault Systèmes company) where he was responsible for the development of multiple software solutions for crystallography, sequence/structure alignment for proteins and sequence alignment/information theory for genomic data.

In addition, he developed many other novel software analysis and visualization tools for complex biological data. In 2002, Tom joined EMBL-EBI where he helped to coordinate the development and subsequently make public the Protein Databank in Europe (PDBe) from the macromolecular database.

In 2009, he was put in charge of all databases and services for the PDBe and ensured the smooth running of all productions systems. He was also instrumental in the design and implementation of the wwPDB’s new deposition and annotation system that went public a year ago. Tom’s career includes many peer reviewed publications and conference presentations.

“It’s great to have Tom in our team. He is a true innovator and will help us to cement our position as the leading supplier of data analysis and visualization solutions for scientists” said Mike Hartshorn, PhD, CSO at Dotmatics. “Tom’s experience, knowledge and creativity will be instrumental in the development of novel solutions to provide scientists with new insights into their research.”