Erez Lieberman Aiden
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Erez Lieberman Aiden (born 1980, né Erez Lieberman) is an American research scientist active in multiple fields related to
applied mathematics Applied mathematics is the application of mathematics, mathematical methods by different fields such as physics, engineering, medicine, biology, finance, business, computer science, and Industrial sector, industry. Thus, applied mathematics is a ...
. He is a professor of molecular and human genetics and Emeritus McNair Scholar at the Baylor College of Medicine, and formerly a fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows and visiting faculty member at
Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...
. He is an adjunct professor of
computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...
at
Rice University William Marsh Rice University, commonly referred to as Rice University, is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas, United States. Established in 1912, the university spans 300 acres. Rice University comp ...
. Using mathematical and computational approaches, he has studied
evolution Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, re ...
in a range of contexts, including that of networks through evolutionary graph theory and languages in the field of culturomics. He has published scientific articles in a variety of disciplines. Lieberman Aiden has won awards including the Lemelson–MIT Student Prize and the
American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of ...
's Award for Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Research in Biological Physics. In 2009, Lieberman Aiden was named as one of 35 top innovators under 35 by '' Technology Review'' and in 2011 he was one of the recipients of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.


Early life and education

Lieberman grew up in
Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...
with three siblings. He began
computer programming Computer programming or coding is the composition of sequences of instructions, called computer program, programs, that computers can follow to perform tasks. It involves designing and implementing algorithms, step-by-step specifications of proc ...
at the age of seven. His father, Aharon Lieberman, was a technology entrepreneur and owned a factory in
New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...
. As a child Lieberman Aiden spoke
Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...
and Hungarian, making English his third language. Lieberman Aiden studied mathematics, physics, and philosophy at Princeton, and earned a master's degree in History at
Yeshiva University Yeshiva University is a Private university, private Modern Orthodox Judaism, Orthodox Jewish university with four campuses in New York City.
. He proceeded to complete a joint PhD in mathematics and bioengineering at the Harvard–MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, where he was advised by Eric Lander and Martin Nowak.


Research and career

Lieberman Aiden contributed to the founding of evolutionary graph theory along with his PhD supervisor Martin Nowak. He has since been involved in researching the three dimensional structure of the
human genome The human genome is a complete set of nucleic acid sequences for humans, encoded as the DNA within each of the 23 distinct chromosomes in the cell nucleus. A small DNA molecule is found within individual Mitochondrial DNA, mitochondria. These ar ...
and the field of culturomics.


3D genome structure

Lieberman Aiden was part of a team of scientists from the University of Massachusetts Medical School and MIT that first suggested human DNA folds into a fractal globule rather than an equilibrium globule. This finding explains how each cell's genome is able to be heavily compacted without forming a
knot A knot is an intentional complication in Rope, cordage which may be practical or decorative, or both. Practical knots are classified by function, including List of hitch knots, hitches, List of bend knots, bends, List of loop knots, loop knots, ...
. Lieberman Aiden and coworkers invented a variant of chromosome conformation capture called "Hi-C" which produces a genome-wide measure of contact probabilities that point to a 3-dimensional genome structure. This technique combines existing chromosome capture methodology with next-generation sequencing, enabling an all-versus-all measure of chromatin contacts. In 2009 this work was published in the journal ''
Science Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...
'' and was featured as a cover illustration. Following the publication, Lieberman Aiden was quoted as saying: In 2014, he served as a senior author on an article in '' Cell'' which described a refined method of Hi-C which his team used to describe the fundamental organization of DNA.


Culturomics

Lieberman Aiden was involved in the analysis of a corpus of around 5 million digitised books, applying data mining techniques to advance the new field of culturomics. Leiberman Aiden was involved in a project to digitise
Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...
texts in 2004,
analysis Analysis (: analyses) is the process of breaking a complex topic or substance into smaller parts in order to gain a better understanding of it. The technique has been applied in the study of mathematics and logic since before Aristotle (38 ...
of which provided supporting evidence for verb regularisation, a process whereby
irregular verb A regular verb is any verb whose conjugation follows the typical pattern, or one of the typical patterns, of the language to which it belongs. A verb whose conjugation follows a different pattern is called an irregular verb. This is one instance ...
s become increasingly regular over time. After the announcement of
Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical charac ...
, Lieberman Aiden approached Google's Director of Research Peter Norvig and was permitted to statistically analyse their data. His work contributed to the Google Ngram Viewer, released in December 2010, which makes use of culturomics ideas to produce normalized historical trends for any sequence of letters. This project published a number of findings in the journal ''Science'', including the changing dynamic of fame and instances of literary censorship during the
Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
.


Awards and honors

In 2008 Lieberman Aiden was awarded the Lemelson-MIT Student Prize for his work on the iShoe, meant to assist elderly people with balance problems and prevent falls that could cause injury. The following year, the iShoe was listed as one of "20 New Biotech Breakthroughs that Will Change Medicine" by '' Popular Mechanics''. A year later Lieberman Aiden was named as one of 35 top innovators under 35 ( TR35) by MIT's '' Technology Review'' magazine.MIT (September 10, 2009
2009 Young Innovators under 35, Erez Lieberman-Aiden, 29, Harvard University/MIT.
'' Technology Review''.
In 2010, the
American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of ...
presented Lieberman Aiden with the Award for Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Research in Biological Physics for his thesis titled "Evolution and the emergence of structure". His doctoral dissertation was also awarded the
Hertz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), often described as being equivalent to one event (or Cycle per second, cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose formal expression in ter ...
Thesis Prize. Lieberman Aiden is also the recipient of an NIH Director's New Innovator Award and was named, along with 95 other American researchers, as a recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2011. In 2014 Lieberman Aiden was deemed an Emeritus McNair Scholar at the Baylor College of Medicine.


Personal life

Erez Lieberman married Aviva Presser in 2005; following the marriage both husband and wife appended to their surnames "Aiden", which means Eden in Hebrew and, in Gaelic, little fire. They have a son named Gabriel Galileo, a daughter called Maayan Amara and another boy called Judah Avraham. Outside of scientific interests, Lieberman Aiden participated in a
modern art Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the styles and philosophies of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the tradit ...
collaboration with Nicholas Kahn and Richard Selesnick which was exhibited in galleries in the United States and Europe. Lieberman Aiden and his wife founded Bears Without Borders, a
nonprofit organisation A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...
which distributes stuffed toys to the developing world.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lieberman Aiden, Erez 1980 births Living people American computer scientists Jewish American scientists Yeshiva University alumni Princeton University alumni Baylor College of Medicine faculty Rice University faculty Harvard University faculty Harvard University alumni 21st-century American Jews Recipients of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers NIH Director's New Innovator Award recipients