Apple Bioinformatics Award Winners
Dr. Deborah Dean
Institutions
Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute, University of California at San Francisco
Assignment
Scientist and professor of medicine
Scientific Discipline
Molecular Biology
Challenge
Finding a vaccine for bacteria in the genus Chlamydia, the leading causes of preventable blindness and sexually-transmitted diseases in the world today.
Discoveries
Identified recombination within a gene in the same species of Chlamydia and gene exchange between different species of Chlamydia.
Identified the first insertion sequence-like element for Chlamydia, the first step in learning how to genetically manipulate the organism.
Research
“I’m looking at different strains of Chlamydia from all over the world. Through sequencing and comparative genomics, we hope to determine not only how strains vary in terms of virulence but how new strains emerge — which will contribute greatly to vaccine development.”
Resources
Dr. Dean designed her own lab at the 100,000 square-foot research institute, an historic building in the heart of Oakland. Her team includes 12 post-doctoral fellows, medical students, undergrads and technicians.
“Developing a vaccine to prevent Chlamydia has been my life-long goal, but along the way we can develop public health interventions based on the knowledge we gain through bioinformatics, which will also enhance the probability of developing an efficacious vaccine.”
Apple Workgroup Cluster for Bioinformatics
“I have a lot of different software packages and tools at my fingertips, but it’s incredibly frustrating to go from one program to another. That’s why the cluster is absolutely superb. I can analyze data in completely different ways on a single platform.”
Why Apple?
“People who do what I do are always looking for the best technology. They need to know that Apple has some of the most state-of-the-art technology, that it has a capability of doing not only bioinformatics, but also biostatistics and mathematical modeling on a single cluster.”