Beckman Fall Symposium 2018 - The Revolution in Diagnostics

Ash Alizadeh, M.D., Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Medicine, Division of Oncology at the Stanford University School of Medicine. His research lies at the intersection of computational biology, cancer genetics, and systems biology. As a practicing oncologist and physician scientist, he works on multiple aspects of oncology biomarker development. Two major areas of interest of his group have been genomic biomarkers for noninvasive detection of cancers and for the recognition of tumors by the immune system. His group has led the development of several genomic techniques including detection of circulating tumor DNA (CAPP-Seq) and deconvolution of tumor microenvironments (CIBERSORT). Important features of these widely used techniques include their high accuracy and their applicability to a broad spectrum of cancers, tissues, and cell types. Dr. Alizadeh’s recent work demonstrates the clinical utility of ctDNA-based liquid biopsies for various cancers including lymphomas and lung cancers. Dr. Alizadeh is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, is a recipient of awards from the American Red Cross, Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, Doris Duke Charitable Research Foundation, and V-Foundation; and he serves as a current member of the Cancer Genetics Study Section of the NIH.

Euan Ashley, M.D., Ph.D., is Professor of Medicine, Genetics and Data Science at Stanford University. His lab is focused on the science of precision medicine. In 2010, he led the team that carried out the first clinical interpretation of a human genome. This study, the focus of over 300 news stories, became one of the most cited articles in clinical medicine that year and was later featured in the Genome Exhibition at the Smithsonian in D.C. Today, Dr. Ashley directs the Clinical Genomics Program at Stanford hospitals and is founding director of the Center for Inherited Cardiovascular Disease. In 2013, he was recognized by the Obama White House for his contributions to personalized medicine. He is recipient of the National lnnovation Award from the American Heart Association, as well as an NIH Director's New Innovator Award. He is principal investigator of the MyHeart Counts Cardiovascular Health Study, launched in collaboration with Apple in 2015. In 2016, he was part of the winning team of the $75M One Brave Idea competition funded by Google, the AHA, and AstraZeneca. He is founder of two companies: Personalis, Inc. and DeepCell, Inc.

Joseph DeRisi, Ph.D., is Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco, and co-President of the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub. He employs an interdisciplinary approach to his work combining genomics, bioinformatics, biochemistry, and bioengineering to study parasitic and viral infectious diseases in a wide-range of organisms. He was one of the early pioneers of DNA microarray technology and whole genome expression profiling, and is nationally recognized for his efforts to make this technology accessible and freely available. Today, he uses this approach to study the activity of the full-range of malaria genes and has generated provocative insights in many emerging viral diseases. Dr. DeRisi has received numerous honors and awards including the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, the Searle Scholar Award, the David and Lucile Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering, the Heinz Award in Technology, and was named an Eli Lilly and Company Research Award Laureate. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2015, the National Academy of Sciences in 2016, and was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator from 2005-2016.

Sanjiv “Sam” Gambhir, M.D., Ph.D., is the Virginia & D.K. Ludwig Professor of Cancer Research, and the Chair of the Department of Radiology at the Stanford University School of Medicine. He also heads up the Canary Center at Stanford for Cancer Early Detection and directs the Molecular Imaging Program at Stanford (MIPS). He received his M.D., Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Gambhir helped bring together the fields of cell and molecular biology with that of biomedical imaging to form the field of multimodality molecular imaging of living subjects. He has over 600 publications and 40 patents in the field. He has developed and translated strategies for merging nuclear and optical sciences for improved cancer detection and management. These include the imaging of gene and cell therapies through positron emission tomography (PET) and multimodality reporter gene technology. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2008, the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2014, and the National Academy of Inventors in 2016.

Kari Nadeau, M.D., Ph.D., is the Naddisy Foundation Professor of Pediatric Food Allergy, Immunology and Asthma, Professor of Pediatrics (Allergy and Clinical Immunology), and Director of the Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy and Asthma Research at Stanford University School of Medicine. For more than 30 years, she has devoted herself to understanding how environmental and genetic factors affect the risk of developing allergies and asthma, and studying the molecular mechanisms underlying the diseases. She leads a diverse team of specialists — in areas from immunology to clinical research to computational biology — a team that was among the first to show that high dimensional immunophenotyping of T cells involved in allergy could be used in therapies for patients. She has overseen more than 50 clinical trials and enrolled more than 4,000 patients in allergy, asthma, and immunology studies. Dr. Nadeau received her M.D., Ph.D. from Harvard Medical School, and completed her residency in pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital, and a clinical fellowship in asthma and immunology at Stanford and the University of California, San Francisco. She has served as a White House Medical Consultant, a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the EPA, NHLBI, DSMB, NIH Study Sections, FARE Scientific Board, the American Lung Association Medical Board, ASCI, and chairs the AAAAI Mechanism Committee.

Stephen Oesterle, M.D., is a venture partner at New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and serves as a Senior Advisor to EQT Partners and Temasek Holdings. He is a Director at Baxter International and REVA Medical, and is a member of the Verily Life Sciences Advisory Board. He was formerly SVP for Medicine and Technology at Medtronic Plc., and a member of its Executive Operating Committee for 14 years.

Oesterle graduated summa cum laude from Harvard and received his M.D. from Yale. He completed his residency at Massachusetts General Hospital and a postdoctoral fellowship in Interventional Cardiology at Stanford, and served on the faculty at Stanford and Harvard Medical Schools.

Stephen Quake, D.Phil., is the Lee Otterson Professor of Bioengineering and Professor of Applied Physics at Stanford University, and is co-President of the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub. Dr. Quake helped found and lead Stanford’s Bioengineering department and was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator from 2006-2016. The focus of his laboratory is the application of precision measurement to biological processes. The lab has pursued two main avenues of technology development in order to improve biological measurement techniques. The first has been to develop the biological equivalent of the integrated circuit: microfluidic large-scale integration (LSI). The devices take advantage of the unusual physics of fluids in small volumes. The second technology is the development and application of ultra-high throughput DNA sequencing technology, which led to the first demonstration of single molecule sequencing.  Work in this area has opened up new research avenues in human genetics and immunology, and the development of new clinical diagnostics including the first non-invasive prenatal test for Down Syndrome and other aneuploidies. Dr. Quake has received numerous honors and awards including the Human Frontiers of Science Nakasone Prize, the MIT-Lemelson Prize, the Raymond and Beverly Sackler International Prize in Biophysics, the American Society for Microbiology Promega Biotechnology Research Award, the Royal Society of Chemistry Publishing Pioneer of Miniaturization Award, and the NIH Director’s Pioneer Award. He was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator from 2006-2016.

Lucy Shapiro, Ph.D., Beckman Center Director, is the Virginia and D.K. Ludwig Professor of Cancer Research in the Department of Developmental Biology, at the Stanford University School of Medicine. She is a microbial geneticist whose research has resulted in major advances in understanding cell differentiation. Her innovative use of the bacterium Caulobacter crescentus has yielded fundamental insights for understanding the bacterial cell as a paradigm for an integrated system in which the transcriptional circuitry is interwoven with the three-dimensional deployment of key regulatory and morphological proteins. Dr. Shapiro showed for the first time that bacterial DNA replication occurred in a spacially organized way, and that the act of replication and the subsequent segregation of the DNA to opposite ends of the cell dictates the cellular position and time of function of the cell division machinery. She has won numerous awards and distinctions for her contributions to the field of microbial genetics including the 2005 Selman Waksman Award, the 2009 Canada Gairdner International Award, the 2012 Louisa Horwitz Prize, the 2012 National Medal of Science, and the 2014 Pearl Meister Greengard Prize awarded by Rockefeller University to celebrate the achievements of outstanding women in science.

The Beckman Center for Molecular and Genetic Medicine was established in 1989 to promote exchange across diverse scientific disciplines throughout the schools of Stanford University. Founded on the principle that innovation transcends traditional boundaries, the Beckman Center fosters the integration of basic science with clinical medicine by supporting programs in translational research, shared resource facilities, technological innovation, scientific discourse, scholarly concentrations, and faculty recruitment. Learn more about Beckman Center