Editors for Computational and Systems Biology

We aim to publish studies that use computational methods, models and software to provide important biological insights in all areas of the life sciences. Read the latest research in this subject area.

Type

All sections

Senior editors

Naama Barkai

Senior Editor

Naama Barkai is a systems and computational biologist interested in how bio-molecular circuits are designed. She joined the Weizmann Institute in 1999, following a post-doc (Princeton) and graduate studies (Hebrew University) in physics. She is currently chair of the Department of Molecular Genetics, and the head of the Azrieli and Kahan Centers for Systems Biology at the Weizmann Institute. In 2013, Barkai was elected to a Vallee Foundation Visiting Professorship and awarded the Abisch Frankel prize.

Expertise
Computational and Systems Biology
Physics of Living Systems

Research focus
systems biology
modeling
functional genomics
yeast genetics
morphogen gradients

Competing interests statement
Naama Barkai's main funding sources are from the European Research Council (ERC), the Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP), the Israel Science Foundation (ISF), Minerva, and the Bi-national Science Foundation (BSF). Barkai also serves on the editorial board of Development.
Arup K Chakraborty

Senior Editor

Arup K Chakraborty is the Robert T Haslam Professor of Chemical Engineering, Physics, Chemistry, and Biological Engineering at MIT. He is the founding Director of MIT’s Institute for Medical Engineering and Science. He is also a founding steering committee member of the Ragon Institute of MIT, MGH, and Harvard, and an Associate Member of the Broad Institute of MIT & Harvard. After obtaining his PhD in chemical engineering and postdoctoral studies, he joined the faculty at the University of California at Berkeley in December 1988. He rose through the ranks, and ultimately served as the Warren and Katherine Schlinger Distinguished Professor and Chair of Chemical Engineering, Professor of Chemistry, and Professor of Biophysics at Berkeley. He was also Head of Theoretical and Computational Biology at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. In September 2005, Chakraborty moved to MIT.

His entire career has been focused on research at the intersection of disciplines. After an early career in engineering of polymers and catalysts, since 2000 Chakraborty’s work has focused on bringing together immunology and the physical and engineering sciences; more specifically, the intersection of statistical mechanics and immunology. His interests span T-cell signaling, T-cell development and repertoire, and a mechanistic understanding of HIV evolution, antibody evolution, and vaccine design. Chakraborty’s work at the intersection of disciplines has been recognized by numerous honors, including the NIH Director’s Pioneer Award, the EO Lawrence Medal for Life Sciences from the US DOE, the Allan P Colburn and Professional Progress awards from the AIChE, a Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar award, and a National Young investigator award. Chakraborty was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering for completely different bodies of work. He is also a member of the National Academy of Medicine, making him one of 21 individuals who are members of all three branches of the US National Academies. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and serves on the US Defense Science Board. Chakraborty has received four teaching awards at Berkeley and MIT.

Expertise
Computational and Systems Biology
Immunology and Inflammation
Physics of Living Systems

Research focus
computational biology
immunology
statistical mechanics
signaling
virology
protein evolution

Competing interests statement
Arup Chakraborty is funded by the NIH and the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT, and Harvard.
Aviv Regev

Senior Editor

Aviv Regev is a computational biologist who joined the Broad Institute as a core member and MIT as a faculty member in 2006. Her work investigates how complex molecular networks function and evolve in the face of genetic and environmental changes, over time-scales ranging from minutes to millions of years. Regev received her MSc from Tel Aviv University, studying biology, computer science, and mathematics in the Interdisciplinary Program for the Fostering of Excellence, where she undertook research in both theoretical and experimental biology. She received her PhD in computational biology from Tel Aviv University. Prior to joining the Broad Institute, Regev was a fellow at the Bauer Center for Genomics Research at Harvard University, where she developed new approaches to the reconstruction of regulatory networks and modules from genomic data. Regev is also an associate professor in the Department of Biology at MITâ¨and director of the Klarman Cell Observatory at the Broad. Regev is the Director of the Cell Circuits Program at the Broad and a lead principal investigator for the Center for Cell Circuits at the Broad Institute, a Center of Excellence in Genomic Science (CEGS). Regev has been a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Early Career Scientist since 2009, and was named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Investigator in 2013. She is a recipient of the NIH Director’s Pioneer Award, a Sloan fellowship from the Sloan Foundation, the Overton Prize from the International Society for Computational Biology, and the Earl and Thressa Stadtman Scholar Award from the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB).

(Image Credit: Maria Nemchuk)

Expertise
Computational and Systems Biology
Genetics and Genomics
Chromosomes and Gene Expression
Evolutionary Biology
Cancer Biology

Research focus
systems biology
molecular networks
computational biology
single cell genomics
regulatory networks
systems immunology
gene regulation
evolution

Competing interests statement
Aviv Regev receives funding from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the National Institutes of Health, and the Sloan Foundation. She is on the external advisory board of the San Diego Center for Systems Biology, the FAS Center for Systems Biology at Harvard, the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing, the Jackson Laboratory, the European Molecular Biology Lab (EMBL), the SciLife Lab in Sweden, and ThermoFisher Scientific. She is on the advisory editorial board of Molecular Systems Biology and is an editorial board member of Genome Biology and Development. Regev is a consultant for Syros Phramaceuticals, GenePeeks, and CTIG (Cancer Therapeutics Innovation Group). Regev also worked for several years in the biotech industry in Israel, where she established and directed a bioinformatics research and development team at QBI, a functional genomics company.
Patricia Wittkopp

Senior Editor

Patricia Wittkopp received a BS from the University of Michigan, a PhD from the University of Wisconsin, and did postdoctoral work at Cornell University. In 2005, she began a faculty position at the University of Michigan, where she is now an Arthur F Thurnau Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, Center for Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics, and LSA Honors Program. Her research investigates the genetic basis of phenotypic evolution, with an emphasis on the evolution of gene expression. Molecular and developmental biology, population and quantitative genetics, genomics and bioinformatics are integrated in this work. She was a Damon Runyon Cancer Research Fellow, an Alfred P Sloan Research Fellow, and a recipient of a March of Dimes Starter Scholar Award.

Expertise
Computational and Systems Biology
Ecology
Genetics and Genomics
Evolutionary Biology

Research focus
evolutionary genetics
evolution and development
gene expression
regulatory networks
allele-specific expression

Competing interests statement
Patricia Wittkopp has received research support from the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, March of Dimes, and the Alfred P Sloan Foundation. She is currently an Associate Editor of Molecular Biology and Evolution and Genome Biology and Evolution, and also serves on the Advisory Editorial Board of Trends in Genetics.

Reviewing editors

Timothy Verstynen

Carnegie Mellon University, United States

Expertise
Computational and Systems Biology
Neuroscience

Research focus
cognition
decision-making

Experimental organism
human
Stephen Parker

University of Michigan, United States

Expertise
Genetics and Genomics
Chromosomes and Gene Expression
Computational and Systems Biology

Research focus
diabetes
disease susceptibility
functional genomics
comparative genomics
population genomics

Experimental organism
human
mouse
rat
Chris Ponting

University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Expertise
Computational and Systems Biology
Genetics and Genomics

Research focus
evolutionary genomics
long non-coding RNAs
functional genomics
transcriptomics

Experimental organism
D. melanogaster
human
mouse
Michael Breakspear

QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Australia

Expertise
Computational and Systems Biology
Neuroscience

Research focus
systems neuroscience
computational neuroscience
clinical neuroscience
Christian R Landry

Universite Laval, Canada

Expertise
Computational and Systems Biology
Evolutionary Biology

Research focus
evolutionary genetics
evolution
bioinformatics
cell and systems biology
yeast genetics

Experimental organism
S. cerevisiae
Nir Ben-Tal

Tel Aviv University, Israel

Expertise
Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics
Computational and Systems Biology

Research focus
structural bioinformatics
structure, function and motion in membrane proteins
protein interactions
Carl T Bergstrom

University of Washington, United States

Expertise
Computational and Systems Biology
Ecology
Evolutionary Biology

Research focus
game theory
network science
evolution
Alexander Borst

Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology, Germany

Expertise
Computational and Systems Biology
Neuroscience

Research focus
visual processing
systems neuroscience
computational neuroscience

Experimental organism
Drosophila
Ronald L Calabrese

Emory University, United States

Expertise
Computational and Systems Biology
Neuroscience

Research focus
motor pattern generation
neuronal and small networks models
electrophysiological properties of neurons and synapse
computational neuroscience

Experimental organism
leech
Ben Cooper

Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit, Thailand

Expertise
Computational and Systems Biology
Epidemiology and Global Health

Research focus
population biology of communicable diseases
antimicrobial resistance
epidemiological methods
Job Dekker

University of Massachusetts Medical School, United States

Expertise
Computational and Systems Biology
Chromosomes and Gene Expression

Research focus
spatial organisation of genomes
chromatin interaction networks
Michael Doebeli

University of British Columbia, Canada

Expertise
Computational and Systems Biology
Ecology
Evolutionary Biology

Research focus
mathematical modelling
evolution of diversity
social insects
ecology and evolution of microbial communities
David D Ginty

Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, United States

Expertise
Computational and Systems Biology
Developmental Biology
Neuroscience

Research focus
neurotrophic factors
peripheral nervous system development
mechanosensory neurons
tactile processing
spinal cord
Mary B Kennedy

California Institute of Technology, United States

Expertise
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
Computational and Systems Biology
Neuroscience

Research focus
synaptic plasticity
synaptic regulation
biochemical signal transduction networks
systems biology
Peter Latham

University College London, United Kingdom

Expertise
Computational and Systems Biology
Neuroscience

Research focus
bayesian inference
network dynamics
neural coding
synaptic plasticity
Andrei Lupas

Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, Germany

Expertise
Computational and Systems Biology
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics

Research focus
origins and evolution of folded proteins
coiled coils
bioinformatics
transmembrane signal tranduction
bacterial surface proteins
Andrew Morris

University of Liverpool, United Kingdom

Expertise
Computational and Systems Biology
Genetics and Genomics

Research focus
statistical genetics
genetic epidemiology
methodological development
genome-wide association studies
Richard A Neher

University of Basel, Switzerland

Expertise
Computational and Systems Biology
Physics of Living Systems
Evolutionary Biology

Research focus
population genetics
evolution of RNA viruses
bioinformatics
Molly Przeworski

Columbia University, United States

Expertise
Computational and Systems Biology
Evolutionary Biology
Genetics and Genomics

Research focus
population genetics
evolutionary biology
recombination

Experimental organism
primates
Yibing Shan

DE Shaw Research, United States

Expertise
Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics
Computational and Systems Biology

Research focus
computational structural biology
signaling
computational chemistry
molecular dynamics
Wenying Shou

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, United States

Expertise
Computational and Systems Biology
Ecology
Evolutionary Biology

Research focus
evolution of cooperation and multi-level selection
microbial ecology and evolution
quantitative experimental biology
theoretical biology
Cassidy Sugimoto

Indiana University Bloomington, United States

Expertise
Computational and Systems Biology

Research focus
scholarly communication
scientometrics
gender
science policy
M Dawn Teare

Reviewing Editor

Expertise
Computational and Systems Biology
Epidemiology and Global Health

Research focus
statistics
population genetics
epidemiology
Alfonso Valencia

Barcelona Supercomputing Center, Spain

Expertise
Cancer Biology
Computational and Systems Biology

Research focus
bioinformatics
structural bioinformatics
evodevo
cancer genomics
text mining
Mark CW van Rossum

University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Expertise
Computational and Systems Biology
Neuroscience

Research focus
synaptic plasticity
noise in neural systems
the early visual system
retina
Aleksandra Walczak

Ecole normale superieure, France

Expertise
Computational and Systems Biology
Physics of Living Systems

Research focus
systems biology
gene regulatory networks
immune system
population genetics

Experimental organism
zebrafish