Isaac Kohane

IN A NUTSHELL:
Biomedical informaticist, physician, and i2b2 founder Isaac Kohane wants to turn hospital data systems into “living laboratories” to study the genetic basis of disease.

BIO:
Isaac Kohane, MD, PhD, co-directs the Center for Biomedical Informatics at Harvard Medical School. He applies computational techniques, whole genome analysis, and functional genomics to study human diseases through the developmental lens, and particularly through the use of animal model systems. Kohane has led the use of whole healthcare systems, notably in the i2b2 project, as “living laboratories” to drive discovery research in disease genomics (with a focus on autism) and pharmacovigilance (including providing evidence for the cardiovascular risk of hypoglycemic agents which ultimately contributed to “black box”ing by the FDA) and comparative effectiveness with software and methods adopted in over 84 academic health centers internationally.

Dr. Kohane has published over 200 papers in the medical literature and authored a widely used book on Microarrays for an Integrative Genomics. He has been elected to multiple honor societies including the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the American College of Medical Informatics, and the Institute of Medicine. He leads a doctoral program in genomics and bioinformatics within the Division of Medical Science at Harvard University. He is also an occasionally practicing pediatric endocrinologist.