The Pe’er lab develops advanced machine learning approaches to probe fundamental questions about cellular plasticity and the regulatory circuits and cellular interactions underlying tissue biology, with a focus on cancer and development.
The Pe’er lab is an interdisciplinary group that combines advanced genomics approaches with machine learning to address fundamental questions in biomedical science. Empowered by powerful technologies such as single-cell RNA sequencing and imaging-based spatial molecular profiling, we analyze complex data to understand basic biology and disease.
Our group is interested in how organisms develop from a single cell to generate a vast diversity of cell types, how epigenetic control over these processes rewires over the course of development, and how cells communicate to execute multicellular responses.
We have a longstanding interest in cellular plasticity, the consequences of intra-tumor heterogeneity, the evolution and metastasis of cancer cells, and the mechanisms by which regulatory circuits go awry in disease. By understanding the mechanisms that different cancers use to initiate, progress, spread and interact with the immune system, we can spur the development of personalized therapies and immunotherapies.
Biography
Dana Pe’er is an HHMI Investigator, Chair of Computational & Systems Biology and Scientific Director of the Single-cell Analytics Innovation Lab at SKI. Her lab has pioneered foundational machine learning approaches to derive cell states, trajectories and cell–cell interactions from single-cell genomics and spatial profiling data, and used these tools to investigate cellular plasticity in cancer and development.
For her contributions, Dr. Pe’er has been recognized with the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career, NSF CAREER, NIH Director's New Innovator and Pioneer, ISCB Innovator and Ernst W. Bertner Memorial awards, ISCB Overton Prize, and fellowship in the AACR Academy and ISCB.
