Princeton computer scientist joining Jackson research staff in January
| Date: October 21, 2008 | 
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Computer scientist Matthew Hibbs, Ph.D., will be joining The Jackson Laboratory’s research faculty in January 2009. Dr. Hibbs received his Ph.D. from Princeton University and comes to the Laboratory after serving as a postdoctoral research assistant there.
A specialist in bioinformatics and computational biology, Dr. Hibbs began his undergraduate studies at the University of Texas interested in computer graphics, not genetics. But an early seminar in bioinformatics changed his thinking for good, and computer animation’s loss was computational biology’s gain.
"I saw how you could really understand diseases using computer science tools," Dr. Hibbs said. "Contributing to cancer research became much more appealing to me than figuring out how to make hair move more realistically in movies like ‘Shrek’."
These days biomedical research is awash in information—genome sequences, gene expression data, and so on—buried in databases here and there. It is difficult to access and has yet to be integrated and analyzed. It’s an interesting problem, and Hibbs already has mountains of biological data available to choose from.
"I work with available data and apply machine learning and artificial intelligence to predict the behavior of genes and proteins. I can then provide these predictions to the biologists for validation in the laboratory."
Dr. Hibbs is currently wrapping up a project to develop a more effective search engine for gene expression data for yeast. The computer leap from yeast to mouse does not daunt him, as he is able to tailor his methodology to the particular biological problem—and the data it generates—at hand. Indeed, one of his first projects of interest at JAX is to work with the mouse Gene eXpression Database hosted here to broaden its scope and improve its accessibility.
Dr. Hibbs sees his work as a way to contribute to disease research and enhance the entire field’s capabilities through applying effective computational biology methods.
"The code I use is open source and freely available for future data analysis projects," Dr. Hibbs said. "In the end, it’s about finding ways to make these data more accessible—and more useful—to the biomedical research community."
Dr. Hibbs' appointment is part of The Jackson Laboratory's research expansion, whereby the the current number of 36 research groups will grow to 45 over the next 5 years. Each research group is led by a principal investigator, such as Dr. Hibbs, as well as research assistants and technicians.
The Jackson Laboratory (www.jax.org) is a nonprofit biomedical research institution and National Cancer Institute-designated Cancer Center based in Bar Harbor, Maine. Its mission is to discover the genetic basis for preventing, treating and curing human diseases, and to enable research and education for the global biomedical community.
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Note: a high-resolution version of the photo of Dr. Hibbs is available upon request.
Contact(s): Joyce Peterson, 207-288-6058
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