Alper Uzun, PhD Principle Investigator
Dr. Uzun received his training in molecular biology at Istanbul University and furthered his education in medical biochemistry at Kocaeli University in Turkey. This foundation led him to pursue advanced degrees in computational biology and bioinformatics, earning both a Master’s and a PhD from Northeastern University.
Following his PhD, Dr. Uzun continued his training under the guidance of Prof. James Padbury in the Department of Pediatrics at the Women and Infants Hospital, and Prof. Sorin Istrail in the Department of Computer Science at Brown University. In 2012, he was appointed as an Instructor of Pediatrics, and by 2014, he was promoted to the role of Assistant Professor of Pediatrics.
Dr. Uzun currently holds the position of Associate Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Brown University, with a secondary appointment in Pediatrics. He also serves as the Director of Cancer Bioinformatics at the Legorreta Cancer Center. In his laboratory, he combines next-generation sequencing, big data analytics, and bioinformatics techniques with network biology methodologies. This interdisciplinary approach allows his team to delve into the genetic architecture of complex diseases, with a special focus on cancer research.
Current members
(Listed alphabetical order by last name) | Benjamin Ahn, Medical Student | Network biology of cancer subtypes. |
 | Erin Chang, Medical Student | Network biology of neuroblastoma. Focused in comparative network analysis of neuroblastoma and wet lab validations. |
 | Abhinav Chede, Undergraduate Student | Developing cancer gene identifier for cancer networks to find motifs and signatures. |
 | Jennifer Chen, Computer Science and Biology, Undergraduate Student | Developing user interfaces for comparative network biology analysis. Focused in building user friendly web interfaces for the outputs of cancer subtypes of PPI networks. |
| Varun Kasibhatla, Medical Student | Network biology of Parkinson's Disease. |
 | Suin Jung, Undergraduate Student | Examining melanoma involves a network biology approach, taking into account environmental impacts and the burden of mutations. |
 | Jennifer Li, Computer Science, Undergraduate Student | Tool development, variant data visualization. Focused in front end development and creating state of the art user friendly visualizations. |
| Colin Pascual, Computer Science, Undergraduate Student | TBA |
 | Meiyi Song, Computational Biology, Undergraduate Student | Identfying conserved network modules across different cancer-specific protein-protein interaction networks. |
 | Rosy Sun, Computational Biology, Undergraduate Student | Network biology of breast cancer, focused on PPAR proteins. |
| Daniel White, Computer Science, Undergraduate Student | Mapping cancer cases, environmental factors, and population data across state-specific visualizations |
 | Amelia Zug, Computational Biology, Undergraduate Student | Bioinformatics applications for single-cell sequencing in cancer biology, with a focus on ovarian cancer. |
Alumni
- William Suh, Pre-Medical Studies, Economics, Undergraduate Student 2022-2024.
- Andy Yang, Chemical Biology, Undergraduate Student, 2022-2024,– Graduated, Honors Thesis
- Valentina Grether, Biomedical Engineering, Undergraduate Student, 2021-2024, – Graduated, Honors Thesis
- Finán Gammell, High School Student, Summer 2023
- Caden Chou, Computer Science, Undergraduate Student, Spring-Summer 2023
- Charissa Chou, Research Assistant 2022-2023, Undergraduate Student 2020-2022
- Orion Bloomfield, Research Assistant, Undergraduate Student, Spring 2022
- Kazen Gallman, Research Assistant,Undergraduate Student, Fall 2021-Spring 2022
- George Tollefson, BS Clinical Research Assistant, 2017-2021
- Alexander Lee, Undergraduate Student, Summer 2020
- Elizabeth Woo, Undergraduate Student, 2019-2020, Computational Biology – Graduated, Honors Thesis
- David Armanious, Undergraduate Student, 2017-2019, Computational Biology- Graduated, Honors Thesis
- Michael Superdock, Medical Student, Summer 2017-2018
- Gensay Sazci, Undergraduate Student, Summer 2017
- Sarah Tran, Undergraduate Student, Summer 2017
- MacKenzie Brigham, 2016 Medical Student, Summer 2016
Collaborators
Ali Amin, MD
Benedito Carneiro, MD
Wen-I Chang, MD
Liang Cheng, MD
Phyllis Dennery, MD
Andre De Souza, MD
Wafik El-Deiry, MD, PhD
Joshua Honeyman, MD
Sorin Istrail, PhD
Sean Lawler, PhD
James Padbury, MD
Jessica Schuster, PhD
Rob Sobol, PhD
Ece Uzun, PhD
Alphabetical order based on last names
