Nicholas P. Tatonetti, PhD, has recently been named director of clinical informatics at the Institute for Genomic Medicine (IGM) at Columbia University Medical Center. In this new role, he is charged with planning, organizing, directing and evaluating all clinical informatics efforts across the Institute. In particular, he will focus on the integration of electronic health record data for use in genetics and genomics studies.

Dr. Tatonetti, who is Herbert Irving Assistant Professor of Biomedical informatics with an interdisciplinary appointment in the Department of Systems Biology, specializes in advancing the application of data science in biology and health science. Researchers in his lab integrate their medical observations with systems and chemical biology models to not only explain drug effects, but also further understanding of basic biology and human disease. They focus also on integration of high throughput data capture technologies, such as next-generation genome and transcriptome sequencing, metabolomics, and proteomics, with the electronic medical record to study the complex interplay between genetics, environment, and disease.

At the Institute for Genomic Medicine, researchers are focused on innovative approaches to genomic medicine. Their multi-tiered approach to genomic medicine utilizes large scale genomic sequencing and analysis, paired with functional biology to advance the diagnosis, characterization, and treatment of genetic diseases. IGM is playing a critical role in Columbia’s overall Precision Medicine Initiative, a major University-wide effort to provide medical diagnosis, prevention and treatment based on an individual’s variation in genes, environment, and lifestyle. 

Dr. Tatonetti, who joined Columbia in 2012, is also affiliated with the Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, the Department of Medicine, the Department of Biomedical Informatics, and the Center for Cancer Systems Therapeutics.