Manolis Kellis

Summary

Manolis Kellis (Greek: Μανώλης Καμβυσέλλης; born 1977) is a professor of Computer Science and Computational Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.[3] He is the head of the Computational Biology Group at MIT[4] and is a Principal Investigator in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) at MIT.[5]

Manolis Kellis
Manolis Kellis at the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) meeting in Orlando Florida on October 19, 2017
Born
Manolis Kamvysellis
Greek: Μανώλης Καμβυσέλλης

(1977-03-13) March 13, 1977 (age 47)
Alma materMassachusetts Institute of Technology (PhD)
Known forENCODE
Awards
Scientific career
Fields
ThesisComputational Comparative Genomics: Genes, Regulation, Evolution. (2003)
Doctoral advisor
Websitecompbio.mit.edu

Kellis is known for his contributions to genomics, human genetics, epigenomics, gene regulation, genome evolution, disease mechanism, and single-cell genomics. He co-led the NIH Roadmap Epigenomics Project[6] effort to create a comprehensive map of the human epigenome,[7][8][9] the comparative analysis of 29 mammals to create a comprehensive map of conserved elements in the human genome,[10][11] the ENCODE, GENCODE, and modENCODE projects to characterize the genes, non-coding elements, and circuits of the human genome and model organisms.[12][13][14] A major focus of his work is understanding the effects of genetic variations on human disease,[15] with contributions to obesity,[16][17][18] diabetes,[19] Alzheimer's disease,[20][21][22] schizophrenia,[23] and cancer.[24]

Education and early career edit

Kellis was born in Greece, moved with his family to France when he was 12, and came to the U.S. in 1993.[25] He obtained his PhD from MIT, where he worked with Eric Lander, founding director of the Broad Institute, and Bonnie Berger, professor at MIT[26] and received the Sprowls award for the best doctorate thesis in Computer Science,[27] and the first Paris Kanellakis graduate fellowship.[28] Prior to computational biology, he worked on artificial intelligence, sketch and image recognition, robotics, and computational geometry, at MIT and at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center.[26]

Research and career edit

As of July 2018, Manolis Kellis has authored 187 journal publications[29] that have been cited 68,380 times.[1] He has helped direct several large-scale genomics projects, including the Roadmap Epigenomics project,[30][7] the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) project,[31] the Genotype Tissue-Expression (GTEx) project.[15]

Comparative genomics edit

Kellis started comparing the genomes of yeast species as an MIT graduate student. As part of this work, which was published in Nature in 2003,[32] he developed computational methods to pinpoint patterns of similarity and difference between closely related genomes. The goal was to develop methods for understanding genomes with a view to apply them to the human genome.

He turned from yeast to flies and ultimately to mammals, comparing multiple species to explore genes, their control elements, and their deregulation in human disease.[33] Kellis led several comparative genomics projects in human,[33] mammals,[34][10] flies,[35][36] and yeast.[37]

Epigenomics edit

Kellis co-led the NIH government-funded project to catalogue the human epigenome. He said during an interview with MIT Technology Review[33] “If the genome is the book of life, the epigenome is the complete set of annotations and bookmarks.”[33] His lab now uses this map to further the understanding of fundamental processes and disease in humans.

Obesity edit

Kellis and colleagues used epigenomic data to investigate the mechanistic basis of the strongest genetic association with obesity, published in the New England Journal of Medicine.[16] They showed that this mechanism operates in the fat cells of both humans and mice and detailed how changes within the relevant genomic regions cause a shift from dissipating energy as heat (thermogenesis) to storing energy as fat.[18] A full understanding of the phenomenon may lead to treatments for people whose 'slow metabolism' cause them to gain excessive weight.[17]

Alzheimer's disease edit

Kellis, Li-Huei Tsai, and others at MIT used epigenomic markings in human and mouse brains to study the mechanisms leading to Alzheimer’s disease, published in Nature in 2015.[20] They showed that immune cell activation and inflammation, which have long been associated with the condition, are not simply the result of neurodegeneration, as some researchers have argued. Rather, in mice engineered to develop Alzheimer’s-like symptoms, they found that immune cells start to change even before neural changes are observed.[21]

Single-cell Genomics edit

The Kellis Lab has profiled a large number of human post-mortem brains at single-cell resolution, studying inter-individual variation associated with genetic differences and disease phenotypes, including the first single-cell transcriptomic analysis of Alzheimer's disease (Nature, 2019), single

Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) edit

Kellis is a member of the Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) project that seeks to elucidate the basis of disease predisposition. It is an NIH-sponsored project that seeks to characterize genetic variation in human tissues with roles in diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.[15]

Kellis is also a Principal Investigator of the enhancing GTEx (eGTEx) consortium, studying epigenomic changes of regulatory elements and epitranscriptomic changes of RNA transcripts across multiple human tissues.[38]

Disease Mechanism edit

To date, his lab has developed specific domain expertise in obesity,[17] diabetes,[19] Alzheimer's disease,[20] schizophrenia,[23] heart disease,[39] ALS and FTLD,[40] and cancer.[24]

Teaching edit

In addition to his research, Kellis co-taught for several years MIT's required undergraduate introductory algorithm courses 6.006: Introduction to Algorithms and 6.046: Design and Analysis of Algorithms[41][42] with Profs. Ron Rivest, Erik Demaine, Piotr Indyk, Srinivas Devadas and others.

He is also teaching a computational biology course at MIT, titled "Computational Biology: Genomes, Networks, Evolution."[43] The course (6.047/6.878) is geared towards advanced undergraduate and early graduate students, seeking to learn the algorithmic and machine learning foundations of computational biology, and also be exposed to current frontiers of research in order to become active practitioners of the field.[44] He started 6.881: Computational Personal Genomics: Making sense of complete genomes, and 6.883/9.S99: Neurogenomics: Computational Molecular Neuroscience This course is aimed at exploring the computational challenges associated with interpreting how sequence differences between individuals lead to phenotypic differences such as gene expression, disease predisposition, or response to treatment.[45]

Awards and honors edit

Kellis received the US Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE),[46] the National Science Foundation CAREER award,[47] a Sloan Research Fellowship,[48] the Gregor Mendel Medal for Outstanding Achievements in Science by the Mendel Lectures committee, the Athens Information Technology (AIT) Niki Award for Science and Engineering,[49] the Ruth and Joel Spira Teaching award,[50] and the George M. Sprowls Award for the best Ph.D. thesis in Computer Science at MIT.[27] He was named as one of Technology Review's Top 35 Innovators Under 35 for his research in comparative genomics[51]

Media appearances edit

  • Decoding A Genomic Revolution, TEDx Cambridge, 2013 "MIT Computational Biologist Manolis Kellis gives us a glimpse of the doctor’s office visit of the future, and uses his own genetic mutations to show itus how a revolution in genomics is unlocking treatments that could transform medicine as we know it"[52]
  • Regulatory Genomics and Epigenomics of Complex Disease, Welcome Trust, 2014 "Manolis Kellis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, gives one of the keynote lectures at Epigenomics of Common Diseases, (28-31 October 2014), organised by the Wellcome Genome Campus Advanced Courses and Scientific Conferences team at Churchill College, Cambridge[53]
  • Manolis Kellis Reddit Ask Me Anything (AMA), Reddit Science AMA Series: "I’m Manolis Kellis, a professor of computer science at MIT studying the human genome to learn about what causes obesity, Alzheimer’s, cancer and other conditions. AMA about comp-bio and epigenomics, and how they impact human health".

References edit

  1. ^ a b Manolis Kellis publications indexed by Google Scholar  
  2. ^ Kamvysselis, Manolis (2003). Computational comparative genomics : genes, regulation, evolution (PhD thesis). MIT. hdl:1721.1/7999. OCLC 53277177.  
  3. ^ "Manolis Kellis | MIT CSAIL". www.csail.mit.edu. Retrieved 2018-07-19.
  4. ^ "MIT Computational Biology Group". MIT Computational Biology Group Lab Head. Retrieved 2018-07-19.
  5. ^ Kellis, Manolis. "People | MIT CSAIL". www.csail.mit.edu. Retrieved 2018-07-19.
  6. ^ "Roadmap Epigenomics Project - Home". www.roadmapepigenomics.org. Retrieved 2018-07-24.
  7. ^ a b Kundaje, Anshul; Meuleman, Wouter; Ernst, Jason; Bilenky, Misha; Yen, Angela; Heravi-Moussavi, Alireza; Kheradpour, Pouya; Zhang, Zhizhuo; Kellis, Manolis (2015). "Integrative analysis of 111 reference human epigenomes". Nature. 518 (7539): 317–330. Bibcode:2015Natur.518..317.. doi:10.1038/nature14248. ISSN 0028-0836. PMC 4530010. PMID 25693563.
  8. ^ "Researchers generate a reference map of the human epigenome". MIT News. Retrieved 2018-07-18.
  9. ^ "Researchers generate a reference map of the human epigenome". MIT News. Retrieved 2018-07-19.
  10. ^ a b Lindblad-Toh, Kerstin; Garber, Manuel; Zuk, Or; Lin, Michael F.; Parker, Brian J.; Washietl, Stefan; Kheradpour, Pouya; Ernst, Jason; Kellis, Manolis (2011). "A high-resolution map of human evolutionary constraint using 29 mammals". Nature. 478 (7370): 476–482. Bibcode:2011Natur.478..476.. doi:10.1038/nature10530. ISSN 0028-0836. PMC 3207357. PMID 21993624.
  11. ^ "Analysis of 29 mammals reveals genomic 'dark matter'". MIT News. Retrieved 2018-07-21.
  12. ^ Kellis, Manolis; Wold, Barbara; Snyder, Michael P.; Bernstein, Bradley E.; Kundaje, Anshul; Marinov, Georgi K.; Ward, Lucas D.; Birney, Ewan; Crawford, Gregory E. (2014-04-29). "Defining functional DNA elements in the human genome". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 111 (17): 6131–6138. Bibcode:2014PNAS..111.6131K. doi:10.1073/pnas.1318948111. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 4035993. PMID 24753594.
  13. ^ Ernst, Jason; Kheradpour, Pouya; Mikkelsen, Tarjei S.; Shoresh, Noam; Ward, Lucas D.; Epstein, Charles B.; Zhang, Xiaolan; Wang, Li; Issner, Robbyn (2011-03-23). "Mapping and analysis of chromatin state dynamics in nine human cell types". Nature. 473 (7345): 43–49. Bibcode:2011Natur.473...43E. doi:10.1038/nature09906. ISSN 0028-0836. PMC 3088773. PMID 21441907.
  14. ^ Consortium, The modENCODE; Roy, Sushmita; Ernst, Jason; Kharchenko, Peter V.; Kheradpour, Pouya; Negre, Nicolas; Eaton, Matthew L.; Landolin, Jane M.; Bristow, Christopher A. (2010-12-24). "Identification of Functional Elements and Regulatory Circuits by Drosophila modENCODE". Science. 330 (6012): 1787–1797. Bibcode:2010Sci...330.1787R. doi:10.1126/science.1198374. ISSN 0036-8075. PMC 3192495. PMID 21177974.
  15. ^ a b c "Kellis to lead MIT team in new phase of GTEx project to elucidate basis of disease predisposition". MIT News. Retrieved 2018-07-19.
  16. ^ a b "Identifying the gene switch that turns fat cells bad". Science | AAAS. 2015-08-19. Retrieved 2018-07-19.
  17. ^ a b c "A Fat-Burning Gene May Help Weight Loss". Time. Retrieved 2018-07-19.
  18. ^ a b Claussnitzer, Melina; Dankel, Simon N.; Kim, Kyoung-Han; Quon, Gerald; Meuleman, Wouter; Haugen, Christine; Glunk, Viktoria; Sousa, Isabel S.; Kellis, Manolis (2015-09-03). "FTO Obesity Variant Circuitry and Adipocyte Browning in Humans". New England Journal of Medicine. 373 (10): 895–907. doi:10.1056/nejmoa1502214. ISSN 0028-4793. PMC 4959911. PMID 26287746.
  19. ^ a b Onengut-Gumuscu, Suna; Chen, Wei-Min; Burren, Oliver; Cooper, Nick J; Quinlan, Aaron R; Mychaleckyj, Josyf C; Farber, Emily; Bonnie, Jessica K; Kellis, Manolis (2015-03-09). "Fine mapping of type 1 diabetes susceptibility loci and evidence for colocalization of causal variants with lymphoid gene enhancers". Nature Genetics. 47 (4): 381–386. doi:10.1038/ng.3245. ISSN 1061-4036. PMC 4380767. PMID 25751624.
  20. ^ a b c Gjoneska, Elizabeta; Pfenning, Andreas R.; Mathys, Hansruedi; Quon, Gerald; Kundaje, Anshul; Tsai, Li-Huei; Kellis, Manolis (2015). "Conserved epigenomic signals in mice and humans reveal immune basis of Alzheimer's disease". Nature. 518 (7539): 365–369. Bibcode:2015Natur.518..365G. doi:10.1038/nature14252. ISSN 0028-0836. PMC 4530583. PMID 25693568.
  21. ^ a b "Epigenomics of Alzheimer's disease progression". MIT News. Retrieved 2018-07-19.
  22. ^ "Manolis Kellis – Cure Alzheimer's Fund". Cure Alzheimer's Fund. Retrieved 2018-07-19.
  23. ^ a b Manolis, Kellis; Mark, Daly; Kevin, Eggan; Alkes, Price. "NIH Grant, Network-based prediction and validation of causal schizophrenia genes and variants". Grantome.
  24. ^ a b Hornshøj, Henrik; Nielsen, Morten Muhlig; Sinnott-Armstrong, Nicholas A.; Świtnicki, Michał P.; Juul, Malene; Madsen, Tobias; Sallari, Richard; Kellis, Manolis; Ørntoft, Torben (2018-01-11). "Pan-cancer screen for mutations in non-coding elements with conservation and cancer specificity reveals correlations with expression and survival". npj Genomic Medicine. 3 (1): 1. doi:10.1038/s41525-017-0040-5. ISSN 2056-7944. PMC 5765157. PMID 29354286.
  25. ^ "Getting to the root of genetics". MIT News. Retrieved 2018-07-19.
  26. ^ a b "Manolis Kellis MIT Center for Genome Research Resume" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2018-08-22. Retrieved 2018-07-19.
  27. ^ a b "All Awards | MIT CSAIL". csail.mit.edu. Retrieved 2018-07-19.
  28. ^ "Kanellakis Fellowships | MIT EECS". www.eecs.mit.edu. Retrieved 2018-07-19.
  29. ^ pubmeddev. "Manolis Kellis - PubMed - NCBI". www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Retrieved 2018-07-19.
  30. ^ "NIH-supported researchers map epigenome of more than 100 tissue and cell types". National Institutes of Health (NIH). 2015-07-03. Retrieved 2018-07-19.
  31. ^ Kellis, Manolis; Wold, Barbara; Snyder, Michael P.; Bernstein, Bradley E.; Kundaje, Anshul; Marinov, Georgi K.; Ward, Lucas D.; Birney, Ewan; Crawford, Gregory E. (2014-04-29). "Defining functional DNA elements in the human genome". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 111 (17): 6131–6138. Bibcode:2014PNAS..111.6131K. doi:10.1073/pnas.1318948111. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 4035993. PMID 24753594.
  32. ^ Kellis, Manolis; Patterson, Nick; Endrizzi, Matthew; Birren, Bruce; Lander, Eric S. (2003). "Sequencing and comparison of yeast species to identify genes and regulatory elements". Nature. 423 (6937): 241–254. Bibcode:2003Natur.423..241K. doi:10.1038/nature01644. ISSN 0028-0836. PMID 12748633. S2CID 1530261.
  33. ^ a b c d Schaffer, Amanda. "Annotating the book of life". MIT Technology Review. Retrieved 2018-07-19.
  34. ^ Xie, Xiaohui; Lu, Jun; Kulbokas, E. J.; Golub, Todd R.; Mootha, Vamsi; Lindblad-Toh, Kerstin; Lander, Eric S.; Kellis, Manolis (2005-02-27). "Systematic discovery of regulatory motifs in human promoters and 3′ UTRs by comparison of several mammals". Nature. 434 (7031): 338–345. Bibcode:2005Natur.434..338X. doi:10.1038/nature03441. ISSN 0028-0836. PMC 2923337. PMID 15735639.
  35. ^ Lin, Michael F.; Carlson, Joseph W.; Crosby, Madeline A.; Matthews, Beverley B.; Yu, Charles; Park, Soo; Wan, Kenneth H.; Schroeder, Andrew J.; Kellis, Manolis (2007). "Revisiting the protein-coding gene catalog of Drosophila melanogaster using 12 fly genomes". Genome Research. 17 (12): 1823–1836. doi:10.1101/gr.6679507. ISSN 1088-9051. PMC 2099591. PMID 17989253.
  36. ^ Stark, Alexander; Lin, Michael F.; Kheradpour, Pouya; Pedersen, Jakob S.; Parts, Leopold; Carlson, Joseph W.; Crosby, Madeline A.; Rasmussen, Matthew D.; Kellis, Manolis (2007). "Discovery of functional elements in 12 Drosophila genomes using evolutionary signatures". Nature. 450 (7167): 219–232. Bibcode:2007Natur.450..219S. doi:10.1038/nature06340. ISSN 0028-0836. PMC 2474711. PMID 17994088.
  37. ^ Kellis, Manolis; Birren, Bruce W.; Lander, Eric S. (2004-03-07). "Proof and evolutionary analysis of ancient genome duplication in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae". Nature. 428 (6983): 617–624. Bibcode:2004Natur.428..617K. doi:10.1038/nature02424. ISSN 0028-0836. PMID 15004568. S2CID 4422074.
  38. ^ Xiong, Xushen; Hou, Lei; Park, Yongjin P.; Molinie, Benoit; Gregory, Richard I.; Kellis, Manolis (August 2021). "Genetic drivers of m6A methylation in human brain, lung, heart and muscle". Nature Genetics. 53 (8): 1156–1165. doi:10.1038/s41588-021-00890-3. ISSN 1546-1718. PMC 9112289. PMID 34211177.
  39. ^ Linna-Kuosmanen, Suvi; Schmauch, Eloi; Galani, Kyriakitsa; Boix, Carles A.; Hou, Lei; Örd, Tiit; Toropainen, Anu; Stolze, Lindsey K.; Meibalan, Elamaran; Mantero, Julio C.; Renfro, Ashley (2021-06-24). "Single-cell dissection of live human hearts in ischemic heart disease and heart failure reveals cell-type-specific driver genes and pathways": 2021.06.23.449672. doi:10.1101/2021.06.23.449672. S2CID 235655818. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  40. ^ Pineda, S. Sebastian; Lee, Hyeseung; Fitzwalter, Brent E.; Mohammadi, Shahin; Pregent, Luc J.; Gardashli, Mahammad E.; Mantero, Julio; Engelberg-Cook, Erica; DeJesus-Hernandez, Mariely; Blitterswijk, Marka van; Pottier, Cyril (2021-07-07). "Single-cell profiling of the human primary motor cortex in ALS and FTLD": 2021.07.07.451374. doi:10.1101/2021.07.07.451374. S2CID 235779849. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
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  50. ^ "MIT School of Engineering | » Teaching Awards". Mit Engineering. Retrieved 2018-07-19.
  51. ^ MIT Technology Review. "Innovator Under 35: Manolis Kellis, 29". MIT Technology Review. Retrieved 2018-07-19.
  52. ^ "Decoding A Genomic Revolution | TEDxCambridge". TEDxCambridge. Retrieved 2018-07-19.
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