Weekly Colloquium on Problems in the Biology of Complex Diseases

Brought to you by the Arizona Center for the Biology of Complex Diseases (ABCD) at the University of Arizona:

TOPIC: “Hacking Microbiomes: Using Computers and Genomics to Improve Our World”
SPEAKER: Greg Caporaso, PhD — Associate Professor, Biological Sciences, College of the Environment, Forestry, and Natural Sciences, and Computer Science, School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems; Affiliated Faculty, Center for Ecosystem Science and Society (Ecoss); and Director, Pathogen & Microbe Institute, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff
WHEN: Friday, April 19, 2018 | 9-11 a.m.
WHERE: BIO5 Room 103

Weekly Colloquium, Spring 2019 – Problems in the Biology of Complex Diseases
(CMM, MCB, GENE, IMB, PCOL 595H)
Fridays, 9-11 a.m., Keating/BIO5 Room 103, Jan. 11-April 26 (except for March 1, 9-11 a.m., Keating/BIO5 Room 247)

SPEAKERS SCHEDULE: Click here [PDF] for a printable schedule for the entire series.

About the Speaker
Dr. Greg Caporaso earned bachelor's degees in computer science and biochemistry from the University of Colorado at Boulder and his doctorate in biochemistry and molecular genetics from the University of Colorado Denver. Afterward, he served as a postdoctoral research scientist (2009-11) under mentor Rob Knight, PhD, in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Colorado at Boulder. After joining the Northern Arizona University faculty, he had a summer appointment as an assistant professor (2012-13) at the Institute for Genomics and Systems Biology, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Ill., and was a visiting scientist (while on sabbatical from NAU, 2017-18) in the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics at the National Cancer Institute, a unit of the National Institutes of Health, in Rockville, Md. He teaches undergraduate and graduate bioinformatics. His lab is focused on microbiome research, software development, and applied bioinformatics education. All of its software and educational content is free and open source, with a commitment to open data and transparent, reproducible science. 

On his lab's website, Dr. Caporaso (whose talk concludes our colloquium) introduces his group by stating that "we have diverse backgrounds, but we all love microbes and computers." This description readily captures the essence of Greg's field. He investigates the microbial world (particularly in our work and living environments, but more recently also in our own bodies) using powerful computational tools that seek to make sense of the mind-boggling complexity of microbes by grouping them according to function, ecology and phylogeny... 

Greg is the main author of QIIME™ (canonically pronounced chime), a.k.a., Quantitative Insights Into Microbial Ecology, the most widely utilized bioinformatics pipeline for performing microbiome analysis from raw DNA sequencing data. But Greg also is an inspiring lecturer who can convey an unlimited amount of enthusiasm for microbiome studies... and his enthusiasm is quite infectious!

Come on Friday and listen to this talented researcher/educator who is at the forefront of one of the hottest fields in contemporary biology...

– Donata

Learn more about this lecture series.

For further information, contact ABCD Director Donata Vercelli, MD, colloquium organizer: donata@email.arizona.edu