Dimitris Anastassiou is Charles Batchelor Professor and director of the Genomic Information Systems Laboratory at the Department of Electrical Engineering, and a member of the Department of Systems Biology, Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, and the Center for Cancer Systems Therapeutics (CaST).  He is an IEEE Fellow, the recipient of an IBM Outstanding Innovation Award, a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award, and a Great Teacher Award from the Society of Columbia Graduates. His current research is focused on the discovery and elucidation of "pan-cancer" biomolecular mechanisms shared by multiple cancer types, as well as potential diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic applications associated with these mechanisms. Before becoming interested in systems biology, he conducted research in the area of video technology and authored several patents that have been essential for the implementation of international video standards.