Samuel A. Danziger
PhD, Biomedical Engineering

Building Bridges Between Biology and Computer Science

Sam Danziger

Sam Danziger, PhD

  • email: sam_danziger@ieee.org
          sam.danziger@gmail.com
  • phone: (908)246-4502
  • About Sam

    Sam Danziger currently works at Bristol-Myers Squibb in Seattle, Washington.
        Sam's main research interest is using computer models and high-throughput 'omics experiments to speed up the pace of biological discovery. Sam uses statistical and bioinformatics techniques to inform computational models of biological systems. He then develops machine learning and information theory techniques to determine which features of the biological model (i.e biomarkers) best predict phenotypes such as disease susceptibility. Recently, he has developed techniques for deconvolution - discovering which immune and stromal cells are present in heterogeneous tumor samples.
        Sam previously worked in the Aitchison Lab at the Center for Infectious Disease Research and the Institute For Systems Biology in Seattle, Washington. There he developed large scale integrated gene regulatory networks with biclusters of conditionally co-expressed genes. He has successfully applied these techniques to study peroxisome proliferation, ALS, Alzheimer's disease, and Malaria.
        Sam successfully defended his doctoral dissertation, "Protein Engineering using Structure Based Features and Active Learning" on May 25th, 2009 at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). This disseration focused on active learning, the branch of machine learning where models identify which new experiments will yield the most information. At UCI, Sam used software and wet lab solutions to explore the tumor suppressor protein p53. He has received guidance and support from the eminent Computer Scientist, Dr. Richard H. Lathrop and the Medical Oncologist and Molecular Biologist, Dr. Rainer K. Brachmann as well as Dr. Peter Kaiser and Dr. G. Wesley Hatfield.  Sam is associated with the National Library of Medicine's Institute for Genomics and Bioinformatics (IGB) Bioinformatics Training Program  (BIT).
        Sam has a Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering and a Master's Degree in Computer Science from the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) where he minored in International Relations from 1997-2002. He has since received in 2004 a Master's Degree in Biomedical Engineer from the University of California, Irvine (UCI). While his current research tends to limit his Electrical Engineering applications to the odd broken piece of electronics equipment, he used the UCI Associated Graduate Student Government (AGS) as an outlet for his International Relations interests. In his free time, Sam enjoys hiking, working out at the gym, playing video games and brewing beer. From about August 2006 - August 2007, Sam expanded his skills to include Molecular Biology by expressing mutant p53 in yeast.

Sam's Scientific Papers are available here.

Sam's Curriculum Vitae is available here. (html) (pdf)


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