Harvard biomedical informatics expert to speak at Syracuse University Nov. 8

Harvard biomedical informatics expert to speak at Syracuse University Nov. 8November 01, 2002Judy Holmesjlholmes@syr.edu

Xiaole Shirley Liu, a research fellow at Harvard University’s School of Public Health and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, will present a lecture about her work to develop a new algorithm that helps biologists decode information hidden in the human genome. The lecture will be at 4:15 p.m. Nov. 8 in Syracuse University’s Carnegie Building, Room 312. A reception will precede the lecture at 3:45 p.m. in Room 312. The colloquium is sponsored by the University’s Interdisciplinary Statistics Program in The College of Arts and Sciences and the Syracuse Chapter of the American Statistical Association and is free and open to the public.

Liu earned a Ph.D. in biomedical informatics at Stanford University in June 2002. Prior to receiving her degree, Liu had already made significant contributions to the field of bioinformatics, an emerging interdisciplinary field that deals with the computational management of biological information, according to a Sept. 13, 2002 Chronicle of Higher Education story about her accomplishments. Liu’s human genome algorithm, published in the August 2002 issue of Nature Biotechnology, enables biologists to detect very subtle signals in the genome that regulates genes. The 29-year-old Liu earned a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry and computer science from Smith College in 1997.