Associate Member

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

 

The development of new genomics/transcriptomics technologies (e.g. single-cell RNA-seq, spatial transcriptomics) generally outpaces the development of computational methodologies for appropriately dealing with the resulting data. The Geeleher lab is focused on developing generalizable computational approaches that can be applied to understand human tissue heterogeneity, then nominating new vulnerabilities by the intersection of these datasets with data from large preclinical screening efforts. We use these insights to design comprehensive studies of the most promising novel therapeutics and drug combinations. While much of our computational work has broad applicability across many human diseases, our own wet lab focuses primarily on pediatric neuroblastoma. The overall goal of research is to develop the computational infrastructure that allows the results from preclinical screening to be interpreted in the context of a detailed understanding of human tissue biology, and in understanding this relationship to nominate new opportunities for drug repurposing, the development of new drug targets and new drug combinations. The primary computational tools we use for this purpose are that of unsupervised and supervised machine learning, applied to data from leading edge genomics technologies like single-cell and spatial genomics. While the computational work is highly generalizable, we specifically use these unique computational skills to push forward our own clinical translational and wet-lab mechanistic work focused on neuroblastoma.

Dr. Paul Geeleher received his Ph.D. from the Department of Mathematics at the National University of Ireland in 2012. He went on to complete his postdoctoral training in the Department of Medicine at the University of Chicago, receiving a K99/R00 fellowship in 2018. He joined the faculty at St. Jude in 2019, leading a hybrid team of wet and dry-lab scientists aimed at applying genomics technologies and big data analytics for improving clinical translational outcomes.

 

(Source: St Jude Research Hospital).