Managing Your Health with Big Data

Portrait of Michael Snyder

Michael Snyder

The Possibility of Personalized Medicine

by Linh Nguyen '20

Renowned expert in genetics Michael Snyder will give the lecture, “Using Your Genome and Big Data to Manage Your Health,” at Dickinson on Tuesday, Nov. 28, at 7 p.m. in the Anita Tuvin Schlechter (ATS) Auditorium. A book sale and signing will follow the presentation.

Snyder will discuss how new DNA sequencing technologies have opened up the possibility of personalized medicine: more timely and accessible diagnoses and medicine tailored to the individual patient. Snyder’s research laboratory was the first to use big data in medicine and to carry out a large-scale genomics project in any organism. Currently, the lab is performing the Integrated Personal Omics Profiling (iPOP) Study, which is a longitudinal study of 100 individuals to understand what “healthy” or “sick” looks like genetically and biochemically.

Snyder is the Stanford W. Ascherman Professor of Genetics, chair of the department of genetics and director of the Center for Genomics and Personalized Medicine at Stanford University. He is a leader in the field of functional genomics and proteomics and is one of the major participants of the ENCODE (Encyclopedia of DNA Elements) Consortium. His research laboratory has also developed many advanced technologies that allow for the understanding and monitoring of genes, proteins and regulatory networks. Snyder is the co-founder of several biotechnology companies, such as Protometrix (now part of Life Technologies), Affomix (now part of Illumina), Excelix and Personalis and is the author of the book Genomics and Personalized Medicine: What Everyone Needs to Know.

The event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Department of Biology and the health studies program. It is part of the Clarke Forum’s Fall 2017 semester theme, Big Data.

Learn more

Published November 21, 2017