Please Note: The mentor list may change at any time. Please see the program application for final mentor list.
Research Mentor | Research Area | Research Focus | Institution and Department |
---|---|---|---|
John Barton | Bioinformatics and Genomics, Systems Biology | My group develops statistical inference methods to study evolution and the immune system. We're especially interested in the evolution of highly mutable pathogens like HIV, influenza, and SARS-CoV-2 | Pitt – Computational Biology |
Carlos Camacho | Computational Drug Discovery Computational Structural Biology | Modeling of protein interactions; computational drug discovery. | Pitt – Computational Biology |
Anne-Ruxandra Carvunis | Bioinformatics and Genomics Systems Biology | My research aims at understanding the molecular mechanisms of change and innovation by examining systems biology in the light of evolution and evolution in the light of systems biology. | Pitt – Computational Biology |
Mary Hongying Cheng | Computational Structural Biology | Molecular mechanisms of ion channels and transporters, and regulation of protein functions by drugs, membrane lipids and regulatory proteins. | Pitt – Computational Biology |
Yu-Chih Chen | Bioimage Analysis, Systems Biology | High-throughput multi-omics single-cell analysis augmented with machine learning | Pitt – Computational Biology |
Maria Chikina | Genomics | My group uses machine learning techniques to model the generative process behind biological datasets, with a special focus on immunology and molecular evolution, and develops methods to create biologically interpretable and intuitive representations of high dimensional data. | Pitt – Computational Biology |
Lillian Chong | Computational Structural Biology | Molecular simulations to characterize the pathways and kinetics of long-timescale biological processes, including coupled protein folding and binding processes. | Pitt – Chemistry |
Rob Coalson | Computational Structural Biology Systems Biology | Computational approaches to study ion channel gating and transport. | Pitt – Chemistry, Physics, and the Center for Molecular and Materials Simulations |
Vaughn Cooper | Bioinformatics and Genomics Systems Biology | Studying the evolution, ecology, and genome dynamics of experimental and clinical microbial populations. | Pitt – Microbiology and Molecular Genetics |
Jishnu Das | Systems Biology Systems Immunology | My research focuses on the development and use of machine learning and high-dimensional statistical approaches to analyze immunological datasets, and elucidate mechanisms of natural and vaccine-mediated immunity. | Pitt – Immunology Secondary - Computational & Systems Biology |
Lance Davidson | Systems Biology | Multidisciplinary (mathematics, developmental biology, biophysics, and bioengineering) approach to understanding how molecular and genetic programs drive the formative tissue mechanics and self-assembly processes that generate living structures in developing embryos. | Pitt – Bioengineering |
Jacob D. Durrant | Computational Drug Discovery Computational Structural Biology | Computational structural biology, computer-aided drug design. | Pitt – Biological Sciences |
G. Bard Ermentrout | Systems Biology | Application of nonlinear dynamics to problems from cell biology and physiology. | Pitt – Mathematics CMU – Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition |
Jim Faeder | Systems Biology | Mathematical (rule-based) modeling of intracellular signal transduction pathways. | Pitt – Computational & Systems Biology |
Keisuke Ishihara | Bioimage Analysis, Systems Biology | Computational image analysis of 3D tissues and organoids, Biophysical modeling of multicellular morphogenesis | Pitt – Computational Biology |
David Koes | Computational Drug Discovery | Developing novel computational algorithms and building full-scale systems to support rapid and inexpensive drug discovery. | Pitt – Computational & Systems Biology |
Dennis Kostka | Bioinformatics and Genomics | Computational genomics with a focus on development and cellular differentiation, and single cell RNA sequencing. | Pitt – Developmental Biology |
Rozita Laghaei | Computational Biophysics | We use MCell software to provide insight into many experimentally inaccessible aspects of synaptic function and the microscopic mechanisms underlying Ca2+ triggered synaptic vesicle release; our group also does computer simulations of smart materials and investigates binding sites and proposed mechanisms of action for a novel class of drugs that target presynaptic calcium channels. | Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center/CMU |
Miler Lee | Bioinformatics and Genomics | Gene regulation during early development and cellular reprogramming; comparative genomics. | Pitt – Biological Sciences |
Robin E.C. Lee | Systems Biology | Quantitative imaging, microfluidics, and mathematical models to study how dynamic molecular signals transmit information in single cells. | Pitt – Computational Biology |
Nathan Lord | Bioimage Analysis, Systems Biology | The Lord Lab uses a combination of mathematical modeling, quantitative imaging and optogenetics to understand how embryos prevent and correct mistakes during early development. | Pitt – Computational Biology |
Natasa Miskov-Zivanov | Systems Biology | Automation of learning big mechanisms in biology. Systems and synthetic biology. Emerging technologies and Internet of Things in medicine. | Pitt – Bioengineering |
Sandra Murray | Bioimage Analysis | Role of gap junctions and cell-to-cell communication in endocrine cell proliferation, migration, differentiation, and hormone production using time-lapse video microscopy, transmission immuno-electron microscopy, and molecular biological techniques. | Pitt – Cell Biology and Physiology |
Robert S. Parker | Systems Biology | Systems medicine – mathematical modeling of disease (cancer, critical care/inflammation/sepsis, diabetes, cystic fibrosis) to support patient-tailored treatment decision-making. | Pitt – Chemical and Petroleum Engineering |
Mark Rebeiz | Bioinformatics and Genomics | Studying how morphology (size, shape, color, form) evolves in the animal world utilizing tools of classical developmental biology, as well as genetics, evolution, genomics, and bioinformatics. | Pitt – Biological Sciences |
Jonathan Rubin | Systems Biology | Application of dynamical systems to modeling of inflammation and other aspects of physiology. | Pitt – Mathematics |
Hanna Salman | Systems Biology | Understanding the factors that shape phenotypic variability in populations of bacteria and how the populations benefit from such variability. | Pitt – Physics & Astronomy |
John Shaffer | Bioinformatics and Genomics | Statistical and bioinformatics approaches to gene-mapping complex phenotypes. | Pitt – Human Genetics |
Jason Shoemaker | Systems Biology | Systems immunology – modeling dynamic responses to disease and developing mathematical tools to support multiscale modeling challenges with applications in pathogen detection and clearance, immune evasion of cancerous cells, and more. | Pitt – Chemical & Petroleum Engineering |
Ian Sigal | Bioimage Analysis | Computational and experimental methods to understand the biomechanics of the eye and soft tissue remodeling. | Pitt – Ophthalmology and Bioengineering |
Wayne Stallaert | Systems Biology/Bioimage Analysis | Combining quantitative imaging and computational methods to map the mechanisms that govern fundamental cell fate decisions (e.g. proliferation, quiescence, senescence, death). | Pitt – Computational Biology |
Pei Tang | Computational Drug Discovery Computational Structural Biology | Action of low-affinity drugs (general anesthetics and alcohols) on neurotransmitter-gated receptor channels. | Pitt – Structural Biology |
Shikhar Uttam | Bioimage Analysis | Computational, mathematical and experimental methods to study spatial systems biology of tumor microenvironments | Pitt – Computational Biology |
Ben Van Houten | Computational Structural Biology Systems Biology | The formation and repair of DNA damage in nuclear and mitochondrial genomes, with particular interest in the structure and function of proteins that mediate nucleotide excision repair. | Pitt – Pharmacology and Chemical Biology |
Art Wetzel | Bioimage Analysis | Image processing and large data handling, 10s of TBytes, for neural circuit reconstruction from optical and electron microscopy. This work involves both biological analysis and computational program development. | Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center |
Sean Xie | Computational Drug Discovery | Chemogenomics-knowledgebase small molecule probe design and development for target-specific drug discovery | Pitt – Pharmaceutical Sciences/Drug Discovery Institute |
Jianhua Xing | Systems Biology | Computational and experimental quantitative biology approaches to study the dynamics and (genetic and epigenetic) regulatory mechanism of cell phenotype changes. | Pitt – Computational Biology |
Leming Zhou | Bioinformatics and Genomics Systems Biology | Agent-based, equation-based, and statistical modeling of cardiovascular disease; comparative genomics and its applications in personalized medicine. | Pitt – Health Information Management |