- Speaker
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Isaac Kohane, M.D., Ph.D.Marion V. Nelson Professor of Biomedical Informatics, Harvard Medical School
Chair of the Department of Biomedical Informatics
Associate Professor of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital
Presidential Lectures are a series of free public colloquia spotlighting groundbreaking research across four themes: neuroscience and autism science, physics, biology, and mathematics and computer science. These curated, high-level scientific talks feature leading scientists and mathematicians and are designed to foster discussion and drive discovery within the New York City research community. We invite those interested in these topics to join us for this weekly lecture series.
Less than a century ago, the discovery of new inherited diseases accelerated through clinical research and analysis. The advances in clinical medicine derived from these discoveries were among the compelling impetuses for the Human Genome Project, which aimed to identify the complete set of human genes and make them accessible for further biological study. In many ways, the scientific bounty from the project has been tremendous. However, the primacy of genomics as an explanatory or even causal approach to biology and medicine has been fundamentally limiting.
In this lecture, Isaac Kohane will illustrate how a knowledgeable and deep embrace of dialectic between genomics and phenomenology is needed to rapidly advance our understanding of human biology and accelerate clinical medicine. The synthesis that this embrace entails, he says, will strain our current modes of investigation and put a very high premium on multidisciplinary and quantitative training in biomedicine.
To attend this in-person event, you will need to:
• Be aged 18 or older
• Register in advance
• Provide valid photo ID upon entering the building
• Present your digital or printed Eventbrite ticket confirmation; make sure it is for the correct event and that the name on it matches your ID
• Wear a mask while in the auditorium and restrooms
Please note that by entering the Simons Foundation, you are attesting that you are not experiencing COVID symptoms and are not knowingly positive for COVID
About the Speaker
Kohane is the inaugural chair of the department of biomedical informatics and the Marion V. Nelson professor of biomedical informatics at Harvard Medical School. He develops and applies computational techniques to address disease at multiple scales — from whole healthcare systems as “living laboratories” to the functional genomics of neurodevelopment with a focus on autism. Kohane’s i2b2 project is currently deployed internationally to over 120 major academic health centers to drive discovery research in disease and pharmacovigilance (including providing evidence on drugs that ultimately contributed to “boxed warning” by the FDA). Kohane has published several hundred papers in the medical literature and authored a widely-used book on microarrays for integrative genomics. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine and the American Society for Clinical Investigation.