Mapping and Navigating the Human Regulatory Genome

A talk by Wouter Meuleman -- Principal Investigator, Head of Cell Science Lab, Altius Institute for Biomedical Sciences, Seattle, WA

Originally hosted Aug 12, 2021 | 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM

Wouter Meuleman’s research concerns how the regulatory genome is organized, and what the functional implications of this organization are. The long term research goal is to make "augmented genomics" a reality: a new field in which the work of genome scientists is supplemented – not replaced! – by large-scale visualization and data-driven machine intelligence.

Although technological developments have made it possible to construct genome-wide maps of chromatin state and regulatory elements across hundreds of human cellular conditions, the scale and complexity precludes routine utility of such maps. Wouter develops computational and machine learning approaches to reduce their complexity, while maximally retaining relevant information.

Prior to joining Altius, Wouter did postdoctoral work at MIT and the Broad Institute. He obtained his PhD in Computational Biology from Delft University of Technology and the Netherlands Cancer Institute, the Netherlands. In 2020, Wouter was the recipient of an NHGRI Genomic Innovator Award, which provides generous flexible funding for a five year period.