Chris Sander is a

computational biologist Computational biology refers to the use of techniques in computer science, data analysis, mathematical modeling and computational simulations to understand biological systems and relationships. An intersection of computer science, biology, and d ...

based at the Dana-Farber Cancer Center and Harvard Medical School. Previously he was chair of the Computational Biology Programme at the

Memorial Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK or MSKCC) is a cancer treatment and research institution in Manhattan in New York City. MSKCC is one of 72 National Cancer Institute– designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers. Its main campus is ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. In 2015, he moved his lab to the

Dana–Farber Cancer Institute Dana–Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI) is a comprehensive cancer treatment and research center in Boston, Massachusetts. Dana-Farber is the founding member of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center, Harvard's Comprehensive Cancer Center designated ...

and the Cell Biology Department at

Harvard Medical School Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical and Academic Area, Longwood Medical Area in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is the third oldest medical school in the Un ...

Education

Sander originally trained as a physicist, receiving his undergraduate degree from the

University of Berlin The Humboldt University of Berlin (, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin, Germany. The university was established by Frederick William III on the initiative of Wilhelm von Humbol ...

in 1967. After a period studying at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

and the

Niels Bohr Institute The Niels Bohr Institute () is a research institute of the University of Copenhagen. The research of the institute spans astronomy, geophysics, nanotechnology, particle physics, quantum mechanics, and biophysics. Overview The institute was foun ...

in Copenhagen, he gained his

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

degree in theoretical physics from the

State University of New York The State University of New York (SUNY ) is a system of Public education, public colleges and universities in the New York (state), State of New York. It is one of the List of largest universities and university networks by enrollment, larges ...

in 1975. His thesis was titled ''Analytic properties of bound state wave functions''.

Research

Sander credits his move from theoretical physics to computational biology to

Fred Sanger Frederick Sanger (; 13 August 1918 – 19 November 2013) was a British biochemist who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry twice. He won the 1958 Chemistry Prize for determining the amino acid sequence of insulin and numerous other prot ...

's 1977 landmark paper in ''

Nature Nature is an inherent character or constitution, particularly of the Ecosphere (planetary), ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the Scientific law, laws, elements and phenomenon, phenomena of the physic ...

'', in which the nucleotide sequence of bacteriophage φX174 was published. Sander has made many contributions to the field of

structural bioinformatics Structural bioinformatics is the branch of bioinformatics that is related to the analysis and prediction of the three-dimensional structure of biological macromolecules such as proteins, RNA, and DNA. It deals with generalizations about macromole ...

including developing tools such as the

Families of Structurally Similar Proteins Families of Structurally Similar Proteins or FSSP is a database of structurally superimposed proteins generated using the "Distance-matrix ALIgnment" (DALI) algorithm.The database currently contains an extended structural family for each of 330 repr ...

(FSSP) database and the DSSP algorithm for assigning

secondary structure Protein secondary structure is the local spatial conformation of the polypeptide backbone excluding the side chains. The two most common Protein structure#Secondary structure, secondary structural elements are alpha helix, alpha helices and beta ...

to the

amino acid Amino acids are organic compounds that contain both amino and carboxylic acid functional groups. Although over 500 amino acids exist in nature, by far the most important are the 22 α-amino acids incorporated into proteins. Only these 22 a ...

s of a protein, given the atomic-resolution coordinates of that protein. Sander was a founder of the biocomputing program at the

European Molecular Biology Laboratory The European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) is an intergovernmental organization dedicated to molecular biology research and is supported by 29 member states, two prospect member states, and one associate member state. EMBL was created in ...

in Heidelberg, before moving the program to the

European Bioinformatics Institute The European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) is an intergovernmental organization (IGO) which, as part of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) family, focuses on research and services in bioinformatics. It is located on the Wel ...

in Cambridge. He has served as chief information officer for the biopharmaceutical company

Millennium Pharmaceuticals Takeda Oncology (originally Millennium Pharmaceuticals) is a biopharmaceutical company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is a fully owned subsidiary of Takeda Pharmaceutical. Takeda Oncology's research, development and commercialization ac ...

and has been an advisor to

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

's Deep Computing Initiative, which produced the Deep Blue chess computer.

Awards and honours

Sander is a former Executive Editor for the journal ''

Bioinformatics Bioinformatics () is an interdisciplinary field of science that develops methods and Bioinformatics software, software tools for understanding biological data, especially when the data sets are large and complex. Bioinformatics uses biology, ...

''. In 2014 he was appointed one of the first Honorary Editors of ''Bioinformatics''. Sander was awarded the

ISCB Accomplishment by a Senior Scientist Award The International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) is a learned society, scholarly society for researchers in computational biology and bioinformatics. The society was founded in 1997 to provide a stable financial home for the Intelligent ...

in 2010. He was awarded the 2018

DeLano Award for Computational Biosciences The DeLano Award for Computational Biosciences is a prize in the field of computational biology. It is awarded annually for "the most accessible and innovative development or application of computer technology to enhance research in the life scienc ...

Personal life

Sander is the brother of German actor

Otto Sander Otto Sander (; 30 June 1941 – 12 September 2013) was a German film, theater, and voice actor. Life Education and early career Sander grew up in Kassel, where he graduated in 1961 from the Friedrichgymnasium. After leaving school he spen ...

.. Retrieved 13 August 2015.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sander, Chris American bioinformaticians Living people Fellows of the International Society for Computational Biology German computational chemists Year of birth missing (living people) Humboldt University of Berlin alumni