Russ Biagio Altman is an American professor of
bioengineering
Biological engineering or
bioengineering is the application of principles of biology and the tools of engineering to create usable, tangible, economically-viable products. Biological engineering employs knowledge and expertise from a number o ...
, genetics, medicine, and biomedical data science (and of computer science, by courtesy) and past chairman of the bioengineering department at
Stanford University.
Education
Altman holds an A.B. from
Harvard College
Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher ...
in 1983, a Ph.D. in medical information sciences from Stanford in 1989 and M.D. from
Stanford Medical School
Stanford University School of Medicine is the medical school of Stanford University and is located in Stanford, California. It traces its roots to the Medical Department of the University of the Pacific, founded in San Francisco in 1858. This ...
in 1990.
After his internship at Stanford, he became board certified in 1991 in internal medicine and in clinical informatics in 2014. After a year of post-doctoral research, he joined the faculty as assistant professor in 1992. He became full professor in 2004, and was chair of the department of bioengineering from 2007 to June 2012.
He currently is the Kenneth Fong Professor of Engineering at Stanford, and an advisor to the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub.
As of 2018, Altman was a founding co-editor of the ''
Annual Review of Biomedical Data Science
The ''Annual Review of Biomedical Data Science'' is an academic journal published by Annual Reviews. In publication since 2018, this journal covers significant developments in the field of health informatics and biomedical data science with an a ...
''.
Research and career
His primary research interests are in the application of computing and informatics technologies to problems relevant to medicine. He is particularly interested in methods for understanding drug action at molecular, cellular, organism and population levels. His lab studies how human genetic variation impacts drug response, helping start the
PharmGKB
The Pharmacogenomics Knowledgebase (PharmGKB) is a publicly available, online knowledge base responsible for the aggregation, curation, integration and dissemination of knowledge regarding the impact of human genetic variation on drug response. It ...
project in 2000.
Other work focuses on the analysis of biological molecules to understand the actions, interactions and adverse events of drugs, publishing a database called FEATURE in 2003.
He helps lead an FDA-supported center for regulatory science and innovation (CERSI).
He chaired the Science Board advising the FDA Commissioner, serves on the NIH director’s advisory committee, and is co-chair of the IOM Drug Forum. He is an organizer of the annual
Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing
The Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing (PSB) is an annual multidisciplinary scientific meeting co-founded in 1996 by Dr. Teri Klein, Dr. Lawrence Hunter and Sharon Surles. The conference is to presentation and discuss research in the theory and ap ...
.
He co-founded Personalis, Inc. in 2011 along with three other faculty members including
Euan Ashley
Euan Angus Ashley is a Scottish physician, scientist, author, and founder based at Stanford University in California where he is Associate Dean in the School of Medicine and holds the Roger and Joelle Burnell Chair of Genomics and Precision H ...
,
Atul Butte
Atul J. Butte is a biomedical informatics researcher and biotechnology entrepreneur. He is currently the Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg Distinguished Professor at the University of California, San Francisco. Since April 2015, Butte has serves ...
, Michael Snyder and businessman John West.
In 2017, he started hosting a show on
SiriusXM (Insight Channel 121) titled "The Future of Everything". He is clinically active with a pharmacogenomics consultative service at Stanford Healthcare.
Awards and honors
Altman received the U.S.
Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers
The Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) is the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on outstanding scientists and engineers in the early stages of their independent research careers. The White ...
(1997) and a
National Science Foundation CAREER Award
The National Science Foundation CAREER awards, presented by the National Science Foundation (NSF), are in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through research and education, and the integration of these endeavors i ...
(1996). He is a fellow of the
American College of Physicians
The American College of Physicians (ACP) is a national organization of internists, who specialize in the diagnosis, treatment, and care of adults.Sokanu "What is an Internist?" Retrieved October 20, 2014 With 161,000 members, ACP is the largest ...
(ACP), the
American College of Medical Informatics
The American College of Medical Informatics (ACMI) is a college of elected fellows from the United States and abroad who have made significant and sustained contributions to the field of medical informatics. Initially incorporated in 1984, the o ...
(ACMI), the
American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering
The American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) is a non-profit organization founded in 1991, and headquartered in Washington. It represents 50,000 medical and biomedical engineers, and academic institutions, private industry, ...
(AIMBE), and the
American Association for the Advancement of Science
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsi ...
(AAAS). He is a member of the
National Academy of Medicine
The National Academy of Medicine (NAM), formerly called the Institute of Medicine (IoM) until 2015, is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Medicine is a part of the National Academies of Sciences, En ...
(formerly the Institute of Medicine) of the National Academies. He was president (2000 to 2002), founding board member, and a
Fellow
A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context.
In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements.
Within the context of higher education ...
of the
International Society for Computational Biology
The International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) is a scholarly society for researchers in computational biology and bioinformatics. The society was founded in 1997 to provide a stable financial home for the Intelligent Systems for Mole ...
(ISCB), and-president of the
American Society for Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics (ASCPT) from March 2013 to 2014.
He received the Stanford Medical School graduate teaching award in 2000, and mentorship award in 2014.
In 2018, Altman was awarded the ISCB Outstanding Contributions Award.
External links
Helix Group website at Stanford University
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Altman, Russ Biagio
Stanford University School of Engineering faculty
Harvard College alumni
American bioinformaticians
Stanford University School of Medicine alumni
Fellows of the International Society for Computational Biology
Living people
Stanford University School of Medicine faculty
Year of birth missing (living people)
Place of birth missing (living people)
Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering
Members of the National Academy of Medicine
Annual Reviews (publisher) editors