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September 2005
Computer Science alumnus David Haussler
will be awarded the Dickson Prize in Science by Carnegie Mellon University.
The following announcement was made by the
Center for Biomolecular Science & Engineering, where Haussler is the director.
Carnegie Mellon University will award its prestigious Dickson Prize in Science
to David Haussler, professor of biomolecular engineering and a leader in the
field of bioinformatics.
Haussler will receive an award of $50,000 and will deliver a public lecture
as part of the prize ceremony to be held at Carnegie Mellon University in March
2006.
A Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, Haussler directs the Center for
Biomolecular Science and Engineering (CBSE) at UCSC and is scientific
codirector of the California Institute for Quantitative Biomedical Research
(QB3). He has done pioneering work in the fields of computational learning
theory and bioinformatics. At UCSC, he has been instrumental in establishing
strong and productive interdisciplinary interactions between computer
scientists and molecular biologists.
In the 1990s, Haussler introduced the use of powerful statistical models
(hidden Markov models and related methods) to the analysis of biological
sequences of DNA, RNA, and proteins. This work led to his involvement in the
International Human Genome Project and his group's vital contribution to that
project, providing a computational solution that allowed the completion of the
first working draft of the human genome.
Haussler's group published the human genome sequence on the World Wide Web for
public access and went on to develop and maintain the UCSC Genome Browser. This
interactive web-based "microscope" allows researchers to view analyzed and
annotated genome sequences of humans and other organisms at any scale, from a
full chromosome down to an individual nucleotide. Biomedical researchers
throughout the world use this browser extensively as they seek to understand
and use the vast amount of information contained in the genome sequences.
Haussler uses the tools his team created to conduct ongoing research in
comparative and evolutionary genomics. His group has pioneered a
computer-based, probabilistic process for analyzing the genome of one mammalian
species by comparing it to the genomes of one or more other species. Algorithms
his team developed have identified segments that have been extremely well
conserved throughout millions of years of evolution. Evolutionary theory
predicts that these "ultra-conserved" regions represent novel functional
elements of the genome, but their exact function remains a mystery. The ongoing
investigation of these ultra-conserved regions in Haussler's lab may lead to a
better understanding of how the genome works.
In his most ambitious project, Haussler and his colleagues are using the
genomes of living mammals to attempt to reconstruct by computer the entire
genome of the common ancestor of all placental mammals. While this work is
still in the very early stages, it has already generated considerable interest.
A fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the
American Association for Artificial Intelligence, Haussler received the 2003
ACM/AAAI Allen Newell Award, and R&D Magazine named him "Scientist
of the Year" in 2001.
The Dickson Prize was established by a gift to Carnegie Mellon University from
the estate of Dr. and Mrs. Joseph Dickson to fund an annual
prize to persons who have made outstanding contributions to science in the
United States. Dr. Dickson was a prominent physician in the Pittsburgh area,
and it was his wish to bring as much prestige and honor as possible to the
university and to Pittsburgh with this prize. Since 1970, the university has
awarded the Dickson Prize to prominent researchers in such areas as
mathematics, cell biology, civil engineering, metallurgy, computer science,
genetics, and physics.
Haussler, named a College of Engineering and Applied Science Distinguished
Engineering Alumnus in 2005, received a PhD in Computer Science from the
University of Colorado Boulder in 1982, working with Professor
Andrzej Ehrenfeucht.
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