The Genome Question: Moore vs. Jevons with Bud Mishra

Google Tech Talk March 27, 2012 ABSTRACT It is often said that genomics science is on a Moore's law, growing exponentially in data throughput, number of assembled genomes, lowered cost, etc.; and yet, it has not delivered the biomedical promises made a decade ago: personalized medicine; genomic characterization of diseases like cancer, schizophrenia, and autism; bio-markers for common complex diseases; prenatal genomic assays, etc. What share of blame for this failure ought to be allocated to computer science (or computational biology, bioinformatics, statistical genetics, etc.)? How can the computational biology community lead genomics science to rescue it from the current impasse? What are the computational solutions to these problems? What should be our vision of computational biology in the coming decade? We will discuss three systems: TotalReCaller, SUTTA-Assembler and Feature-Response-Curves, in this context. For more info: http://www.meetup.com/google-nyc-tech-talks/events/56229442/ About the speaker Professor Bud Mishra is a professor of computer science and mathematics at NYU's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, professor of human genetics at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, and a professor of cell biology at NYU School of Medicine. He founded the NYU/Courant Bioinformatics Group, a multi-disciplinary group working on research at the interface of computer science, applied mathematics, biology, biomedicine and bio/nano-technologies. Prof. Mishra has a degree in Physics from Utkal University, in Electronics and Communication Engineering from IIT, Kharagpur, and MS and PhD degrees in Computer Science from Carnegie-Mellon University. He has industrial experience in Computer Science (Tartan Laboratories, and ATTAP), Finance (Tudor Investment and PRF, LLC), Robotics and Bio- and Nanotechnologies (Abraxis, OpGen, and Bioarrays). He is editor of Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, AMRX (Applied Mathematics Research Exchange), Nanotechnology, Science and Applications, and Transactions on Systems Biology, and author of a textbook on algorithmic algebra and more than two hundred archived publications. He has advised and mentored more than 35 graduate students and post-docs in the areas of computer science, robotics and control engineering, applied mathematics, finance, biology and medicine. He is an inventor of Optical Mapping and Sequencing (SMASH), Array Mapping, Copy-Number Variation Mapping, Model Checker for circuit verification, Robot Grasping and Fixturing devices and algorithms, Reactive Robotics, and Nanotechnology for DNA profiling. He is a fellow of IEEE, ACM and AAAS, a Distinguished Alumnus of IIT-Kgp, and a NYSTAR Distinguished Professor. He also holds adjunct professorship at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai, India. From 2001-04, he was a professor at the Watson School of Biological Sciences, Cold Spring Harbor Lab; currently he is a QB visiting scholar at Cold Spring Harbor Lab.