Meet the Speakers

Uri Alon, Ph.D., is a Professor and Systems Biologist at the Weizmann Institute of Science. His highly cited research investigates gene expression, network motifs and the design principles of biological networks in Escherichia coli and other organisms using both computational biology and traditional experimental wet laboratory techniques. Uri earned his bachelor's and master's degrees from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and his Ph.D. in theoretical physics from the Weizmann Institute of Science. After having his interest in biology sparked, he headed for his postdoctoral work at Princeton University in experimental biology, returning to the Weizmann Institute as a Professor. He has featured in several popular videos on YouTube, and highly disseminated popular scientific papers. In recent years, his research has been making a stronger focus on the systems biology of aging, such as the dynamics of cell senescence and their clearance.

Supriyo Bhattacharya, PhD, is Assistant Research Professor at the Integrative Genomics Core at City of Hope. Dr. Bhattacharya is a trained computational structural biologist, bioinformatics expert, and an enthusiast in algorithm development. Dr. Bhattacharya obtained his BTech degree from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur, and completed his Ph.D. from NC State University in 2006. From 2006 to 2011, Dr. Bhattacharya was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Beckman Institute of City of Hope Medical Center, where he studied G protein coupled receptor structure and dynamics using molecular dynamics simulations. During this time, he conceived and developed an information theory-based method (Allosteer) to analyze long distance communication (allostery) within proteins. This approach has been instrumental in analyzing complex protein dynamics, and in designing efficacious drugs by exploiting protein allostery. He is currently co-investigator in an RO1 for advancing information theory and Bayesian algorithms in the analysis of protein dynamics. Dr. Bhattacharya’s other interest is in studying how non-genetic mechanisms can influence, and in some cases, alter the course of evolution in diseases such as cancer. He has developed mathematical models to understand how mechanisms such as phenotypic switching can help cancer cells evade the effects of therapeutic toxicity and acquire resistance. He is currently developing simulation methods to explore the emergence of phenotypic plasticity as a trait to facilitate survival under appropriate environmental conditions.

Amy Brock, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. Before joining the faculty in Austin, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University and Boston Children’s Hospital. She received a PhD in Biological and Biomedical Sciences from Harvard University and a BS in Biology from MIT. Amy Brock's lab is focused on understanding cancer as a complex biological system. Her research interests include cancer systems biology, heterogeneity and cell state plasticity, gene regulatory networks, chemotherapy drug resistance and normal differentiation and differentiation therapy.

Marianne Bronner, Ph.D., is the Edward B. Lewis Professor of Biology at the California Institute of Technology, where her lab studies gene regulatory interactions underlying formation, migration and differentiation of neural crest cells. She received her ScB in Biophysics and then a PhD in Biophysics from Johns Hopkins University. She assumed her first faculty position at the University of California, Irvine, then moved to Caltech in 1996. In 2015, she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and in 2009 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.  She received the Harrison Medal for the International Society for Developmental Biology in 2022, the Conklin Medal from The Society for Developmental Biology in 2013, the Women in Cell Biology Senior Award from the American Society for Cell Biology in 2012, as well as several teaching and mentoring awards from her institution. She does editorial work for PNAS, the Journal of Cell Biology, and previously for eLife.

Hilary Coller, Ph.D., is Professor of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology, UCLA, and Professor of Biological Chemistry at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine. She received her undergraduate degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Harvard University. She received a PhD in Toxicology from MIT where she studied the role of environmental chemicals as mutagenic agents in human tissue.  She did postdoctoral training at the Whitehead Institute in the laboratories of Dr. Eric Lander and Todd Golub, and at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in the laboratory of Dr. Jim Roberts.  The Coller laboratory applies systems biology approaches, cell, molecular biology and biochemical approaches and mouse models to understand the molecular basis of cellular quiescence.  The laboratory has discovered new molecular insights into the cell cycle arrest achieved by quiescent cells and the ability of quiescent cells to survive. Dr. Coller is an Editor in Chief of the journal Physiological Genomics. At UCLA, she is the Director of the Molecular Biology Institute and Chair of the Molecular Biology Interdepartmental Ph.D. Program.

Shasha Chong, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor and Ronald and JoAnne Willens Scholar, Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at California Institute of Technology. Dr. Chong obtained her BS from University of Science & Technology of China and her PhD from Harvard University. During her PhD, she developed novel single-molecule imaging methods and used them to understand DNA-protein interactions and the mechanism of transcriptional bursting in bacteria. During her postdoctoral research in the joint laboratories of Robert Tjian and Xavier Darzacq at University of California, Berkeley, she combined single-cell and single-molecule imaging tools with genome editing and genetics approaches to investigate how intrinsically disordered regions in human transcription factors perform functions in transcriptional regulation and oncogenesis. In her independent lab at Caltech, Dr. Chong employs multidisciplinary approaches to tackle the fundamental rules that govern the interaction behaviors of intrinsically disordered proteins and elucidate their roles in regulating gene transcription under normal and disease conditions. Dr. Chong is a Searle Scholar and a Pew-Stewart Scholar for Cancer Research.

Ken Dill, Ph.D., is the former and founding director of the Laufer Center for Physical & Quantitative Biology at Stony Brook University and the Louis and Beatrice Laufer Professor of Physics and Chemistry. He received SB and SM degrees from MIT in Mechanical Engineering in 1971, a PhD in Biology with BH Zimm at the University of California, San Diego, did postdoctoral research with PJ Flory at Stanford University, and was on the faculty of the University of California San Francisco for 25 years. His research is at the intersection of statistical physics with the biophysics of proteins and cells. He has worked on the physics of protein folding; computational structural biology; proteostasis in the cell; and on foundational problems in nonequilibrium statistical physics. Ken is a past president of the Biophysical Society and a co-author of two textbooks. He received the Hans Neurath Award from the Protein Society, the Max Delbruck Award from the American Physical Society and the Sackler Prize in Biophysics. Ken is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Michael Elowitz, Ph.D., is an HHMI Investigator and Professor of Biology and Biological Engineering at Caltech, who has helped establish foundations for synthetic biology and systems biology. His lab has shown that biological behaviors can be programmed using custom designed molecular circuits; revealed the pervasive role of stochastic fluctuations—or “noise”—in gene expression; and identified a set of biological circuit designs underpinning cellular and multicellular development. Prof. Elowitz studied Physics as an undergraduate at UC Berkeley and then obtained his PhD in Physics at Princeton, where he worked with Stanislas Leibler on cytoskeletal dynamics and the design of synthetic biological circuits. He then moved to Rockefeller University, where he worked in the laboratory of Arnold J. Levine, and with the Center for Studies in Physics and Biology, on gene expression noise. In 2003, he started his own laboratory at Caltech, where he brings synthetic, quantitative, and single cell approaches to multicelluar, mammalian systems. Prof. Elowitz is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Daniel Jarosz, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Chemical and Systems Biology and of Developmental Biology at Stanford University. He is also a fellow of ChEM-H and a member of the Stanford Cancer Institute, Stanford Neurosciences Institute, and Bio-X. Dr. Jarosz received his B.S. in Chemistry and Biochemistry from the University of Washington and then moved to Massachusetts Institute of Technology for his PhD, where he investigated mechanisms of replication and mutagenesis in the laboratory of Dr. Graham Walker. Following his graduation in 2007, he pursued postdoctoral training at the Whitehead Institute with Dr. Susan Lindquist, a pioneer in the field of protein folding. In 2013 Dr. Jarosz established his independent group at Stanford, where his research is focused on molecular mechanisms that contribute to robustness and evolvability. He is a recipient of the NIH Director's New Innovator Award, and a Faculty Scholar of the Bert and Kuggie Vallee Foundation.

Sui Huang, M.D., Ph.D., Professor, Institute for Systems Biology, first studied medicine, followed by doctoral training in molecular biology and physical chemistry at the University of Zurich in the 1990s. He was a faculty at the Harvard Medical School/Children’s Hospital in Boston and at the University of Calgary, investigating cell fate control and tumor angiogenesis. Prof. Huang has championed the embrace of complex systems theory by biomedical research. In the 2000s, he demonstrated that cell fates are high-dimensional attractors of gene networks, supporting ideas originally proposed by Delbruck, Monod and Jacob, and Stuart Kauffman. More recently, he showed that cell fate decisions are bifurcations, or critical transitions, explaining the driving force of cell state change. Prof. Huang’s current work at the Institute for Systems Biology, which he joined in 2011, uses new technologies, including single-cell omics, along with the theory of non-linear stochastic dynamical systems to better understand the dynamics of health and disease, focusing on: cancer cell plasticity (treatment-induced stemness and progression) and wellness-disease transitions in Personal Medicine. In the era of big data, his current work also seeks to unite AI deep learning with human reasoning and formal theory to better understand paradoxical phenomena in medicine. 

Yibin Kang, Ph.D., is Warner-Lambert/Parke-Davis Professor of Molecular Biology at Princeton University, a member of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research Princeton Branch and an Associate Director of Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey. He graduated from Fudan University in 1995.  After completing his PhD at Duke in 2000 and postdoctoral training at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Dr. Kang joined the faculty of Princeton University as an Assistant Professor of Molecular Biology in 2004.  He was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2010 and to Endowed Chair Full Professor in 2012. Dr. Kang has served as the President of the Metastasis Research Society (2016-2018) and Chair of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Tumor Microenvironment Working Group (2018-2019). Dr. Kang’s research focuses on the molecular mechanisms of breast cancer metastasis. His work discovered new genes that promote recurrence, metastasis and treatment resistance of breast cancer, delineated tumor-stromal interactions that are essential for metastatic growth and developed novel therapeutics. Dr. Kang's outstanding achievements have been recognized by many prestigious awards, including the 2011 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Sciences (2011), and the AACR Award for Outstanding Achievements in Cancer Research (2012).

Mohit Kumar Jolly, PhD, is an Associate Professor at Centre for BioSystems Science and Engineering at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. Dr. Jolly completed his bachelors and master’s from IIT Kanpur, and obtained his PhD in Bioengineering at Rice University, where he investigated the presence of hybrid epithelial/mesenchymal phenotypes in cancer metastasis. He was a Gulf Coast Consortia Postdoctoral Fellow jointly at Rice University and UT MD Anderson Cancer Center with Prof. Herbert Levine and Prof. Samir Hanash, developing data-based and spatially extended computational models for tumor microenvironment. He investigates the emergent dynamics of regulatory networks implicated in cancer metastasis and therapy resistance, through integrating mechanistic mathematical modeling with high-throughput experimental data analysis. He has served as co-chair, Mathematical Oncology subgroup at Society for Mathematical Biology, and is the current Editor in Chief, NPJ Systems Biology & Applications. He is the recipient of the prestigious International Center for Theoretical Physics Prize in 2023.

Eric Miska, Ph.D., is Head of the Department of Biochemistry, University of Cambridge. He studied mathematics, physics, and biology at Heidelberg, Berlin, and Mainz and received a BA in Biochemistry from Trinity College, Dublin, in 1996. He received his Ph.D. in pathology from the University of Cambridge, UK, in 2000, working with Tony Kouzarides. He was a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Nobel laureate (2002) Bob Horvitz at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 2000 to 2004. He started his own research group at the Gurdon Institute in 2005. Prof. Miska is now the Herschel Smith Professor of Molecular Genetics and a Senior Group Leader at the Gurdon Institute at the University of Cambridge. He has an appointment as associated faculty at the Cambridge Systems Biology Centre and the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Research Institute. Prof. Miska was an EMBO Young Investigator and is a full member of EMBO since 2012. He also is the 2013 recipient of the Hooke Medal awarded by the British Society of Cell Biology.

Atish Mohanty, Ph.D., is a Research Assistant Professor of Medical Oncology and Therapeutics at the City of Hope National Medical Center. He earned his PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Tokyo. His research focuses on understanding the intricate molecular pathways that drive drug resistance in various cancers. Dr. Mohanty has investigated the roles of key molecular players such as cyclins, integrins, paxillin, SOX2, and KRAS in a range of cancers, including lymphomas, lung cancers, head and neck cancers, and papillary thyroid cancers. He has identified novel mutations and explored alternative signaling pathways that promote tumor progression and confer resistance to therapeutic interventions. Notably, he discovered that Carfilzomib, an FDA-approved proteasome inhibitor initially used for multiple myeloma, is effective in combating resistance to cisplatin and sotorasib in lung cancer, which is now being tested in clinical trials. Dr. Mohanty's scientific explorations extend beyond conventional research boundaries to include the development of mathematical models elucidating cancer cell behavior. Using live cell imaging techniques in co-cultures, he has contributed to the development of innovative mathematical frameworks for studying the role of phenotypic plasticity and non-genetic mechanisms in the evolution of drug resistance. He aims to bridge the gap between basic research and clinical applications to improve patient outcomes.

Aritro Nath, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Molecular Pharmacology, Department of Medical Oncology & Therapeutics Research at City of Hope National Medical Center. Dr. Nath received his Ph.D. in Genetics from Michigan State University, where he studied the role of free fatty acids in promoting epithelial to mesenchymal transition in liver cancer in Dr. Christina Chan’s molecular systems biology lab. He then received postdoctoral training in translational pharmacogenomics in the lab of Dr. R. Stephanie Huang at the University of Chicago and the University of Minnesota. During his postdoctoral training, he developed novel machine learning-guided tools to interrogate the non-coding genome and established long non-coding RNAs as key biomarkers for predicting cancer drug response. After completing his postdoctoral studies, Dr. Nath joined City of Hope National Medical Center, where he is developing predictive biomarkers for drug response using artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) techniques. Currently, his work is being translated into national clinical trials to implement AI/ML-based biomarkers for treatment stratification in patients with advanced breast cancer. Additionally, his lab investigates drug response mechanisms and tumor evolution using bulk and single-cell multiomic methods in patients with breast, ovarian, lung, and brain cancers.

John Orban, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and the Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology Research, at the University of Maryland. Prof. Orban’s research interests focus on the area of protein structural biology and design, particularly in understanding how the malleability of protein folds relates to biological function. High field solution NMR spectroscopy and other biophysical and biochemical methods are employed in his laboratory. Prof. Orban obtained his bachelor’s degree from the University of Adelaide, Australia, and his PhD in Chemistry from the Australian National University. He did his postdoctoral training as a CSIRO Postdoctoral Fellow in Biochemistry & Biophysics at McMaster University, Canada, and then in Biomolecular NMR Spectroscopy at the University of Washington.

José N. Onuchic, Ph.D., is Harry C. and Olga K. Wiess Chair of Physics and Professor of Chemistry and BioSciences at Rice University. He completed his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Universidade de Sao Paulo, Brazil, and his PhD in chemistry from Caltech. Prof. Onuchic has led the biological physics community to devise an integrated picture of a variety of model biochemical and biological systems. His research has expanded across the scales of molecular-level interactions to cellular systems and multi-cellular structures. At Rice he has moved towards medical applications focusing on cancer. In protein folding, he introduced the concept of protein folding funnels. Convergent kinetic pathways, or folding funnels, guide folding to a unique, stable, native conformation. Energy landscape theory and the funnel concept provide the theoretical framework needed to pose and to address the questions of protein folding and function mechanisms. Prof. Onuchic also works on the theory of chemical reactions in condensed matter with emphasis on biological electron transfer. He is also interested in stochastic effects in gene networks with connections to bacteria decision-making and cancer. Currently his group is also focusing on chromatin folding and function. Prof. Onuchic is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, USA.

Karen M. Page, Ph.D., is a Professor of Mathematical Biology at University College London. She studied Mathematics at Queens’ College, Cambridge (MA, Math). Her DPhil, on the topic of patterning in embryology, was completed in Oxford in 1999. She then went to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton as a postdoctoral fellow. There, she studied evolutionary game theory and evolutionary dynamics. She joined the Department of Computer Science at University College London in 2001 as a Lecturer in Bioinformatics and subsequently moved to the Department of Mathematics in 2006. During her time at University College London, she has worked on applying mathematical models to a variety of areas of biology, and is particularly interested in developmental biology, evolution and cancer.

Matt Thompson, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor in the Division of Biology and Biological Engineering. His research is focused on quantitative experimental and modeling approaches to gain programmatic control over cell differentiation and function. He applies mathematical modeling, machine learning, and statistical analysis to engineer and rewire cellular physiology and to synthesize new types of cells that don’t exist in nature. He also develops simplified cellular systems in which physical models can be applied to control geometry and morphology. Dr. Thompson is also the PI for the Single-Cell Profiling and Engineering Center (SPEC) which brings single-cell genomic capabilities to the Caltech campus and drives new technology development. He obtained his undergraduate and PhD degrees from Harvard University.

Peter E. Wright, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Integrative Structural and Computational Biology and holds the Cecil H. and Ida M. Green Chair of Biomedical Research at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. He received his PhD from the University of Auckland, New Zealand in 1972. After postdoctoral training with Professor R.J.P. Williams at the University of Oxford, he joined the faculty at the University of Sydney, Australia in 1976. In 1984, he moved to the United States as a Professor in the Department of Molecular Biology at The Scripps Research Institute and was Chair of that department from 1987-2012. His research has focused on applications of nuclear magnetic resonance to study mechanisms of protein folding, the structural basis of protein-protein and protein-nucleic acid interactions in the regulation of gene expression, and the role of dynamics in protein function. His work on protein interactions led to the realization that many proteins do not adopt stably-folded, globular structures but are intrinsically disordered, and that protein disorder plays an important functional role in cellular signaling networks. He has been Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Molecular Biology since 1990. Prof. Wright is a Member of the National Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.