Citizenship American Name Andrew Kasarskis | Fields Bioinformatics, Genomics | |
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Born November 2, 1972 (age 51)
Madison, Wisconsin ( 1972-11-02 ) Institutions Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Icahn Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology Alma mater University of Kentucky, University of California, Berkeley Institution Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Icahn Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology | ||
Andrew Kasarskis, PhD
Andrew Kasarskis (born November 2, 1972, in Madison, Wisconsin) is an American biologist. He is director of the Icahn Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology and vice chair of the department of genetics and genomic sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Kasarskis is known for taking a network-based approach to biology and for directing the first medical school class offering students the opportunity to fully sequence and analyze their own genomes.
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Education
Kasarskis completed bachelor's degrees in chemistry and biology at the University of Kentucky in 1992. In 1998, he completed his PhD in molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley, under the supervision of Kathryn Anderson.
Research
Throughout his career in industry and academia, Kasarskis’s research has focused on the use of genetic and genomic data together with high-performance computing and advanced analytical tools to address biomedical needs and improve clinical treatment.
After completing his PhD, Kasarskis worked at Stanford University for two years, contributing to the development of various genome databases. In 2000, he entered industry, working in computational biology at DoubleTwist and later Rosetta Inpharmatics (acquired by Merck Research Laboratories). His work there centered on generating and mining complex biological data sets and using that information to build, predict, and model human disease. Kasarskis also worked for Sage Bionetworks and Pacific Biosciences before returning to academia.
In 2011, Kasarskis became vice chair of the department of genetics and genomic sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and co-director, along with Eric Schadt, of the Icahn Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology, where the goal is to use large-scale data analysis to improve patient treatment. His focus is on improving health outcomes through better data mining, and his research program includes sequencing-based pathogen surveillance; pharmacogenomics; electronic health records; and systems biology of sleep, behavior, and stress.
Kasarskis is known for directing the first class that allowed medical and PhD students to fully sequence and analyze their own genomes, along with co-instructors Michael Linderman, George Diaz, Ali Bashir, and Randi Zinberg. He has said that courses like this will be critical for training teams of people capable of performing this type of analysis in a medical setting. He chose whole genome sequencing because he expects the more limited exome sequencing will not be a relevant technological approach in the long term.
Kasarskis has called for improvements to informed consent protocols in patient research based on the concept that studies involving DNA cannot fully be made anonymous. He was quoted in the journal Nature saying, “We need to move beyond an assumption that you cannot be identified from the data that exist about you and really work to make sure that we’re protecting people’s rights in ways that allow us to use the data that are out there for individuals’ and researchers’ benefit.”