posted on December 10, 2013
The College of Biological Sciences recently profiled MSI Principal Investigator Ran Blekhman, an assistant professor in the Department of Genetics, Cell Biology, and Development. Professor Blekhman, who specializes in the genomics of humans and other primates, came to the U just recently, in the fall of 2013. He is studying how bacteria in the human body (the body being considered a "host" for the bacteria) are connected to a person’s genes and how this connection may be related to chronic diseases and conditions. More discussion of Professor Blekhman’s work can be found in the blog post “The message in microbiomes” on the CBS Connect blog.
Professor Blekhman uses MSI’s supercomputers to support his group's research into host-bacteria interactions. The group uses large-scale genomics datasets and are developing and using computational, statistical, data-mining, and populations-genetics techniques.