Presenter

Thomas Brettin’s current work focuses on developing projects at the intersection of genomics, artificial intelligence, and leadership scale computing and providing ongoing direction on existing artificial intelligence and computational biology at Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago. Projects include the NIH-funded Bacterial and Viral Bioinformatics Resource Center, the DOE-NCI-funded Innovative Methodologies and New Data for Predictive Oncology Model Evaluation, and the ARPA-H-funded Integrated AI and Experimental Approaches for Targeting Intrinsically Disordered Proteins in Designing Anticancer Ligands, among others. Thomas has been actively working towards bringing genomics-based computational approaches to clinical research settings. More recently, he has initiated and executed projects aligning with the strategic goals of applying artificial intelligence more broadly to various scientific applications. Over the past two decades, he has led several large research activities, including laboratory and computational projects. These include associating genetic markers with human diseases, using genetic markers for fine-resolution identification of microbial pathogens, sequencing pathogen genomes, and comparative analysis of genomic sequences. He also served as a full-time advisor on the Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s Transformational Medical Technologies program, which involved bioinformatics integration across several sites nationwide to identify and characterize viral and bacterial pathogens in detect-to-treat scenarios.