Two Seminars

The Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Genetics Presents

Michael Snyder, PhD, Professor
Department of Genetics, Stanford University, Stanford, California

Michael Snyder, Ph.D. is a pioneer in the application of big data to biomedical research.  He is the author of a book titled, “Genomics & Personalized Medicine: What Everyone Needs to Know”.  Dr. Snyder is the Director of the Center of Genomics and Personalized Medicine at Stanford University, where he is the Stanford Ascherman Professor and Chair of Genetics. He received his Ph.D. training at the California Institute of Technology and postdoctoral training at Stanford University. He is an internationally recognized leader in the fields of functional genomics and proteomics, and a major participant in the ENCODE project. Dr. Snyder’s research group has developed many technologies in genomics and proteomics and was the first to perform a large-scale functional genomics project in any organism.

Dr. Snyder and his colleagues have developed proteome chips, high resolution tiling arrays for the entire human genome, methods for global mapping of transcription factor binding sites (ChIP-chip now replaced by ChIP-seq), paired-end sequencing for mapping of structural variation in eukaryotes, de novo genome sequencing using high throughput technologies, and RNA-Seq. These technologies have been used for characterizing genomes, proteomes, and regulatory networks. Seminal findings from the Snyder laboratory include the discoveries that much more of the human genome is either transcribed or contains regulatory elements than was previously appreciated, and a high diversity of transcription factor binding occurs between and within species. He has also combined different state-of–the-art “omics” technologies to perform the first longitudinal detailed integrative personal omics profile (iPOP) of an individual and used this information to assess disease risk and monitor disease states for personalized medicine. He is a cofounder of several biotechnology companies, including Protometrix (now part of Life Technologies), Affomix (now part of Illumina), Excelix, Personalis, and Q Bio. Dr. Snyder serves on the board of a number of companies.