Trey Ideker, Ph.D. is known for pioneering work in systems biology and a track record of innovative and widely-used bioinformatic tools. Ideker received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer science from MIT and a PhD in biomedical sciences working with Dr. Lee Hood at the University of Washington. During graduate work, he developed a general framework for how biological systems can be systematically perturbed and modeled which laid the foundation for many systems biology studies. Using Cytoscape, he demonstrated that biological networks could be integrated with gene expression to systematically map pathways and aligned, like sequences, to reveal conserved and divergent functions. He showed that the best biomarkers of disease may not be single proteins but aggregates of proteins in networks. Most recently, his group demonstrated that protein networks contain deep hierarchical structure that recapitulates the majority of cellular components in the Gene Ontology (data-driven ontologies) and provides a basis for deep learning models of cell structure and function. Ideker was named a Top Innovator by Tech Review, is recipient of the Overton Prize from the International Society for Computational Biology and is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He serves on the Editorial Boards of Cell, Cell Systems, Molecular Systems Biology, and PLoS Comp Bio. Directing NRNB builds on leadership positions such as Director of the UCSD Bioinformatics Program and the San Diego Center for Systems Biology, and former Chief of Genetics in the Department of Medicine.

Gary Bader, Ph.D. works on biological network analysis and pathway information resources as a Professor at The Donnelly Centre at the University of Toronto. He helped found the field of network biology with early contributions to network visualization and modeling, database resources and analysis. He was included twice (for Biology/Biochemistry and Computer Science) on the Thomson Reuters list of most influential scientists worldwide in 2014 and once again in 2018 (www.highlycited.com). His research focuses on identifying causal pathways in disease and in precision medicine (predicting patient outcome based on genetic, molecular, pathway and clinical data). For example, using his methods, his team identified novel pathways involved in autism spectrum disorder and the first potential therapy for a devastating pediatric brain cancer. He completed post-doctoral work in Chris Sander’s group in the Computational Biology Center at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. Gary developed the Biomolecular Interaction Network Database (BIND) during his Ph.D.

Chris Sander, Ph.D. is director of the cBio Center in the Department of Data Sciences at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, professor in the Department of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School, and affiliated with the Broad Institute and Ludwig Center at Harvard. Earlier, he was founding department chair of the Biocomputing Program at the European Molecular Biology Laboratories (EMBL) in Heidelberg and, with Michael Ashburner, co-founder of the research program at the European Bioinformatics Institute. He was a founding member of the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) and, with Gary Stormo, founding Executive Editor for the journal Bioinformatics. In 2010 he was awarded the ISCB Accomplishment by a Senior Scientist Award.