Christoph Rau, PhD
My research focuses on using model organism populations to study cardiovascular disease. I obtained my PhD in Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics at UCLA, where I began working with the Hybrid Mouse Diversity Panel to study the genetics underlying heart failure. In my postdoc, I expanded into studying the epigenome and developing new co-expression network algorithms to study the concerted effects of multiple genes on phenotypes relating to cardiovascular disorders. I am excited to be at UNC, one of the best places in the world for mouse genetics and continue my work applying bioinformatic techniques in these populations as well as pursuing several candidate genes through collaborative efforts.
Alexander Rubinsteyn, PhD
I got my PhD in Computer Science from NYU, where I worked on speeding up machine learning algorithms by compiling them to run on graphics cards. After grad school I switched over to computational cancer immunotherapy research at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. After spending a few years getting up to speed on immunology and oncology, I helped start and run three personalized cancer vaccine trials at Mount Sinai before coming to UNC last month. For the past month I have been applying the rapid design principles of personalized cancer vaccines to make a peptide vaccine against SARS-CoV-2. I’m collaborating with my former co-workers at Mount Sinai to open a trial there in the next few months. I’m also collaborating heavily with Ben Vincent’s lab at UNC, which is also working on vaccine antigen selection for SARS-CoV-2 and will be doing some preclinical experiments to help validate vaccine candidates.