Over the past few decades, technological developments have resulted in the accumulation of large genomic data even within a single experiment. The analysis of this data has led to many novel discoveries and medical applications. For this reason, the majority of the biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies today, as well as many labs in academia, include experts in the analysis of biological data. These experts have domain expertise in subfields of genomics, such as cancer genomics, statistical genetics, protein structure prediction, computational medicine, metagenomics, and others.

The analysis of these datasets requires the development of methods that are domain-specific. Over the years, many communities that are dedicated to specific subfields of genomics have emerged. Unfortunately, this resulted in smaller overlap between the different sub-domains; for example, the statistical genomics community has minimal overlap with the metagenomics community. CGSI was formed in order to bridge this gap; it is a methods-oriented program with the goal to create interactions between the different fields of research in computational genomics -- and more broadly, computational medicine -- in an informal setting.

In order to achieve this goal, we structure CGSI in a very non-typical way, resulting in its own unique culture. Specifically, CGSI is a fusion of a summer school and a scientific conference. It has the characteristics of a conference, bringing together over a hundred researchers and trainees who showcase their latest research. It also has the characteristics of a summer school; it is a month-long program that involves a combination of tutorials (broader talks that include an overview of the field) and research talks, with opportunities for in-depth discussions during breaks. It emphasizes the need for interaction between participants. We offer icebreakers and many social activities, including an opening retreat in the mountains, a picnic at the beach, and sports games that involve both faculty and trainees. We hope you will join the community.

We are very proud of the faculty in the CGSI community. It is clear that everyone who joins CGSI views it as an opportunity to be part of a larger community. The vast majority of the CGSI faculty spends at least a week at CGSI, takes part in the social events, and makes an effort to interact with faculty and trainees from other fields within computational medicine in order to foster a sense of a larger methods-based community. We welcome to our community both new and established researchers who are interested in methods development for genomics and medical applications, and who would like to become part of a larger, friendly, and intellectually stimulating community.

The institute has its roots in a program called "Mathematical and Computational Approaches in High-Throughput Genomics", which was held at UCLA's Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics (IPAM) in 2011. Many of the current CGSI faculty were part of this program. CGSI was later founded in 2015 by Eleazar Eskin (UCLA), Eran Halperin (UCLA), John Novembre (The University of Chicago), and Ben Raphael (Princeton University) with the goals of improving education and facilitating collaboration in genomics and related fields. In 2023, in response to changes to the research environment, the founders made the decision to add other areas of research to its agenda: specifically, machine learning and AI applied to medical imaging and electronic health records.

CGSI Co-Founders

Eleazar Eskin

Eleazar Eskin

Professor

Head of Computational Medicine Department | UCLA | @ZarEskinCompMed

Eran Halperin

Eran Halperin

Professor

Computer Science & Anesthesiology | UCLA | @eranhalperin

Ben Raphael

Ben Raphael

Professor

Computer Science | Princeton University | @Benjraphael

John Novembre

John Novembre

Professor

Human Genetics, Ecology & Evolution | University of Chicago | @jnovembre

CGSI Organizing Committee

Jo Hardin

Professor

Mathematics and Statistics | Pomona College

Serghei Mangul

Assistant Professor

Department of Clinical Pharmacy | University of Southern California School of Pharmacy

Harold Pimentel

Harold Pimentel

Assistant Professor

Computational Medicine and Human Genetics | UCLA

Sriram Sankararaman

Sriram Sankararaman

Associate Professor

Computer Science, Computational Medicine, and Human Genetics | UCLA

Rajesh Ranganath

Assistant Professor

Computer Science | Courant Institute and the Center for Data Science | NYU

CGSI 2023 program faculty

Ahmed Alaa | UCB | UCSF
Valerie Arboleda | UCLA
Can Alkan | Bilkent University
Corey Arnold | UCLA
Brunilda Balliu | UCLA
Elias Bareinboim | Columbia University
Lisa Bastarache | Vanderbilt University
Kayhan Batmanghelich | University of Pittsburgh
Elhanan Borenstein | University of Washington
Na Cai | Helmholtz Zentrum München
Francesco Paolo Casale | Helmholtz Munich
Mark Chaisson | USC
Irene Chen | UCB | UCSF
Jeff Chiang | UCLA
Rayan Chikhi | University of Lille
Sumit Chopra | New York University
Nancy Cox | Vanderbilt University
Jessica Dennis | University of British Columbia
Mohammed El-Kebir | University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign
Jason Ernst | UCLA
Eleazar Eskin | UCLA
Nandita Garud | UCLA
Steven Gazal | USC
Simon Gravel | McGill University
Casey Greene | University of Colorado
Ilan Gronau | Reichman University
Olivera Grujic | California State University Stanislaus
Juan Gutierrez | UT San Antonio
Melissa Gymrek | UCSD
Iman Hajirasouliha | Cornell University
Eran Halperin | UCLA
Jo Hardin | Pomona College
Haky (Hae Kyung) Im | University of Chicago
Vanessa Jonsson | UCSC
Shalmali Joshi | Columbia University
Eimear Kenny | Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Aly Azeem Khan | University of Chicago
Jaehee Kim | Cornell University
Rahul Krishnan | University of Toronto
Smita Krishnaswamy | Yale University
Kenneth Lange |UCLA
Christina Leslie | Sloan Kettering Institute
Deyana Lewis | Morehouse School of Medicine
Jingyi (Jessica) Li | UCLA
Wei Li | University of California, Irvine
Christoph Lippert | Hasso Plattner Institute
Zachary Lipton | Carnegie Mellon University
Stefano Lonardi | University of California, Riverside
Jian Ma | Carnegie Mellon University
Nick Mancuso | USC
Siavash Mirarab | UCSD
Erin Molloy | University of Maryland
Jason Moore | Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
Vasilis Ntranos | UCSF
Layla Oesper | Carleton College
Loes Olde Loohuis | UCLA
Yusuf Omosun | Morehouse School of Medicine
Julia Palacios | Stanford University
Bogdan Pasaniuc | UCLA
Nanyun (Violet) Peng | UCLA
Harold Pimentel | UCLA
Teresa Przytycka | National Institutes of Health
Rajesh Ranganath | New York University
Ben Raphael | Princeton University
Saharon Rosset | Tel Aviv University
Julia Salzman | Stanford University
Kris Sankaran | University of Wisconsin – Madison
Sriram Sankararaman | UCLA
Matteo Sesia | USC
Ron Shamir | Tel Aviv University
Liat Shenhav | New York University
Ritambhara Singh | Brown University
Pavel Skums | Georgia State University
Sagi Snir | University of Haifa
Daniel Tward | UCLA
Peter Visscher | University of Queensland, Australia
Julia Vogt | ETH Zurich
Wei Wang | UCLA
Wenyi Wang | MD Anderson Cancer Center
Tandy Warnow | University of Illinois
Pengtao Xie | UCSD
Jason Xu | Duke University
Loic Yengo | University of Queensland, Australia
Noah Zaitlen | UCLA
Chongzhi Zang | University of Virginia
Xinjun Zhang | University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Zijun (Frank) Zhang | Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
James Zou | Stanford University
Or Zuk | The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

CGSI Staff

Stacey Beggs

Program Director

Samantha andrews

Student Programs Manager

Leticia Ortiz

Marketing Manager

Gayane Hovhannisyan

Executive Assistant

CGSI Volunteers