Department of Computational Biology

The Department of Computational Biology develops innovative computational methods to answer challenging biological questions. We accomplish this through the seamless integration of dry-lab and wet-lab approaches.

The department is organized into four synergistic areas:

• Independent faculty research focused primarily on genomics and epigenetics; image analysis; and systems biology
• Collaborative multidisciplinary research supporting projects across St. Jude
• Wet-lab and computing technology development
• Clinical genomics for St. Jude clinical trials and patient care

Investigators collaborate extensively within the department and across basic research and clinical departments at St. Jude. Our faculty research interests range from cancer genomics to machine learning, single-cell sequencing and network construction.

Through our computational infrastructure, innovative analytical approaches and technology development we have accelerated progress in critical research areas. For example, analytical approaches and visualization tools we developed during the St. Jude – Washington University Pediatric Cancer Genome Project have led to discovery of novel mutations driving pediatric cancers.

Our bioinformatics approaches are now being used for many clinical applications, including cancer genetic predisposition studies and the development of targeted therapies. Some of these are being assessed in St. Jude-led pediatric clinical trials. To advance cures, we freely share data analysis software and visualization tools with the global scientific community.