John Quackenbush, Ph.D

Professor of Computational Biology and Bioinformatics

Chair of the Department of Biostatistics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Professor at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

John Quackenbush is Professor of Computational Biology and Bioinformatics and Chair of the Department of Biostatistics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Professor in the Channing Division of Network Medicine, and Professor at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. John’s PhD was in Theoretical Physics, but in 1992 he received a fellowship to work on the Human Genome Project. This led him through the Salk Institute, Stanford, The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR), and to Harvard in 2005. John uses massive data to probe how many small effects combine to influence human health and disease. He has more than 300 scientific papers and over 73,000 citations. Among his honors is recognition in 2013 as a White House Open Science Champion of Change. Genomics has transformed biological science not by producing genome sequences and gene catalogs for a range of species, but rather through the development of technologies that allow us to survey, on a global scale, organisms and their gene, protein, and metabolic patterns of expression. The challenge is no longer how to generate these vast bodies of genomic data, but rather in how to best collect, manage, and analyze the data. As a community, we have a long history of studying biological systems and our best strategy moving forward is to leverage that knowledge so as to best interpret genome scale datasets. Our research group focuses on methods spanning the laboratory to the laptop that are designed to use genomic and computational approaches to reveal the underlying biology. In particular, we have been looking at patterns of gene expression in cancer with the goal of elucidating the networks and pathways that are fundamental in the development and progression of the disease.
Follow Dr Quackenbush on Twitter @johnquackenbush

Publications

Genome-Wide Sex and Gender Differences in Cancer. Lopes-Ramos CM, Quackenbush J, DeMeo DL. Front Oncol. 2020 Nov 23;10:597788. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2020.597788. eCollection 2020. PMID: 33330090. PMID:33330090

Sex Differences in Gene Expression and Regulatory Networks across 29 Human Tissues. Lopes-Ramos CM, Chen CY, Kuijjer ML, Paulson JN, Sonawane AR, Fagny M, Platig J, Glass K, Quackenbush J, DeMeo DL. Cell Rep. 2020 Jun 23;31(12):107795. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2020.107795.PMID: 32579922. PMID:32579922

Constructing gene regulatory networks using epigenetic data. Sonawane AR, DeMeo DL, Quackenbush J, Glass K. NPJ Syst Biol Appl. 2021 Dec 9;7(1):45. doi: 10.1038/s41540-021-00208-3.PMID: 34887443

Blood gene expression risk profiles and interstitial lung abnormalities: COPDGene and ECLIPSE cohort studies. Moll M, Hobbs BD, Menon A, Ghosh AJ, Putman RK, Hino T, Hata A, Silverman EK, Quackenbush J, Castaldi PJ, Hersh CP, McGeachie MJ, Sin DD, Tal-Singer R, Nishino M, Hatabu H, Hunninghake GM, Cho MH. Respir Res. 2022 Jun 17;23(1):157. doi: 10.1186/s12931-022-02077-8. PMID: 35715807

[More publications+][2] [2]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov?term=John%20Quackenbush

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