Terry Gaasterland, an associate professor, joined The Rockefeller
University in September 1998 to establish the Laboratory of Computational
Genomics. A computer scientist with a long-standing interest in medical
and biological questions, Dr. Gaasterland designs bioinformatics tools for
interpreting the flood of data being generated by the Human Genome Project
and other sequencing efforts. Because she focuses intensively on microbial
genomes, her work also has important implications for the understanding and
control of infectious diseases.
Dr. Gaasterland was a postdoctoral fellow in Computer Science at the
Department of Energy when the first microbial genomes were funded for
sequencing by the DOE. Recognizing that genome interpretation would be
an intensive computational task that involves AI, databases and
distributed computing -- her area of expertise in computer science --
Dr. Gaasterland created a microbial genome annotation system called
MAGPIE for Multipurpose Automated Genome Project Investigation Environment. A widely available computational tool, MAGPIE
and its newer eukaryotic adaptation, EGRET, allow biomedical researchers to
gain a deeper understanding of a particular genome sequence by rapidly
comparing it to what is known about the available genome sequences of other
organisms. This comparative approach to genomics links human cellular processes to those in model organisms at the molecular level. Comparing not only genes and proteins
but their regulatory patterns and usage patterns helps to identify
drug targets for diseases, improves understanding of genes associated with
human disease, and gives deeper insight into the evolution of biochemical pathways.
Dr. Gaasterland earned a B.S. in computer science and Russian from Duke
University in 1984. She continued her studies in computer science at the
University of Maryland, where she received an M.S. in 1988 and a Ph.D. in
1992. From 1992 to 1998, she was a member of the mathematics and computer
science division at Argonne National Laboratory, first as an Enrico Fermi
Scholar, and then as an assistant scientist. From 1995 to 1998, she also
held an appointment as an assistant professor at the University of Chicago.
A founding officer of the International Society for Computational Biology,
Dr. Gaasterland was named a Sinsheimer Scholar in 1999. In October 2000,
she received a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers -- the United States government's most prestigious honor for young
investigators.
