Dr. Timothy P. Galitski
Ph.D., Biology
University of Utah, USA, 1996
Dr. Galitski earned his Ph.D. in the University of Utah's Department of Biology where he identified mechanisms of chromosome rearrangement and studied the origin of genetic variation. His research earned him the 1996 James W. Prahl Memorial Award for the Outstanding Graduate Student at the University of Utah Medical Center. With a coveted fellowship from the Helen Hay Whitney Foundation, Dr. Galitski went on to a postdoctoral position at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and the Whitehead/MIT Center for Genome Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts. There he combined functional genomics, genetics, and computational methods to reveal global patterns of gene expression specifying cell type and developmental potential in yeast. For this continuing work, Dr. Galitski was awarded the prestigious 2001 Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award in the Biomedical Sciences. He joined the ISB faculty in 2000, and currently holds the title of Associate Professor.
Areas of Research
Dr. Galitski’s group develops and
applies tightly integrated experimental and computational
approaches to understand the structure, function, and dynamics of
biomolecular systems. Dr. Galitski and his team of researchers study molecular networks controlling cell
differentiation and infectious diseases. Most recently, Dr.
Galitski developed algorithms to identify hierarchical levels of
structure in complex biological information-processing networks,
and generalized computational methods to derive genetic interaction
networks from quantitative phenotype data.
Dr. Galitski’s group exploits a
biological system at the leading edge of system-level biomedical
research. The filamentous/invasive growth of the budding yeast
Saccharomyces cerevisiae serves as a model system for cell
differentiation and infectious disease. The unmatched wealth of
information available for yeast and its experimental capabilities
makes it an ideal post-genomic research subject.
The Galitski team experimentally interrogates this system at
multiple levels: gene expression, gene function, molecular
interactions, genetic interactions, and phenotypes. The team
develops and applies high-throughput genome-scale quantitative
experimental methods. The results from these investigations are
integrated with outside databases of information. Dr. Galitski and
his team computationally model this data to generate system-level
hypotheses, which are then used to direct the group’s
experimental efforts. In addition, the Galitski lab produces
software implementing their computational methods as part of the
Cytoscape open-source
software development project.
Key collaborations within ISB:
Ranish Group – Signaling proteomics
Aitchison Group - Signaling proteomics
Shmulevich Group – Signaling network dynamics
Bolouri Group – Signaling network dynamics
Key collaborations outside ISB:
Cytoscape software project
University of California at San
Diego
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer
Center New York City
Institut Pasteur , Paris, France
http://www.cytoscape.org/
Experimental signaling dynamics
University of British Columbia Vancouver
Networkcontracts analysis of cyclic-amp signaling
Fraunhofer-IGB, Stuttgart
In the news:
The lab’s pioneering work on network modularity and cell biology
has been featured in the Journal of Cell Biology,
“All Systems Go” May 3, 2004,
JCB 165:299.
Awards received:
1996 James W. Prahl Memorial Award for the
Outstanding Graduate Student Presented by the University of Utah
Medical Center for his research identifying mechanisms of
chromosome rearrangement and studying the origin of genetic
variation.
1999 - 2001
Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award in
the Biomedical Sciences Presented by the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and
the Whitehead/MIT Center for Genome Research in Cambridge
Massachusetts for combining functional genomics, genetics, and
computational methods to reveal global patterns of gene expression
specifying cell type and developmental potential in
yeast.
Why I'm at ISB?
I like genetics, the science of biological information. I enjoy the
mixture of molecular mechanisms and abstract concepts in genetic
puzzles. Schooled in microbiology and genetics, I had the
opportunity to work in the field of functional genomics as a
post-doctoral fellow at the Whitehead Institute and the
MIT
Genome
Center
The possibilities to directly address genetic questions of
increasing complexity were becoming clear, and so was the next step
- systems biology. Systems biology is based on two key ideas. First
is that the understanding of complex biological behaviors and
properties lies in the structure, function, and dynamics of
networks of biological information flow. And, it follows that
directly addressing this complexity requires the integration of
biology, technology, and computation. I took a position at the ISB
when it was a fledgling group with a shared vision of
systems-biology and some temporary space. Since then, the ISB has
established itself as an influential model for innovative research
institutions. On a personal level, I find the ISB to be an exciting
and uniquely advantageous place to do challenging genetic
science.
|
home
