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Building Bridges Between Biology and Computer Science
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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