​COMPUTATIONAL CANCER BIOLOGY LABORATORY

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​Our interdisciplinary research utilizes novel machine learning techniques and cutting-edge genomic and imaging technologies, to characterize complex populations of interacting cells in the tumor microenvironment as well as their underlying circuitry.

Our lab is primarily affiliated with the Biomedical Engineering Department and the Irving Institute for Cancer Dynamics (IICD) at Columbia University. We are also affiliated with the Computer Science Department, Data Science Institute and the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center.  Our work is supported by funding from the NIH National Cancer Institute, the NSF, and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

News

2023

• Joy's paper in collaboration with the Izar lab, "Multi-modal single-cell and whole-genome sequencing of small, frozen clinical specimens", published in Nature Genetics (press release)​. 

2022​

• Our preprint "Starfysh reveals heterogeneous spatial dynamics in the breast tumor microenvironment", work led by Siyu, Yinuo, Achille and Lingting, published in Biorxiv (highlights, code)
• The lab receives a CZI Science Diversity Leadership Award (press release)
• Joy's abstract “Mapping Genotype to Phenotype through Joint Probabilistic Modeling of Single-Cell Gene Expression and Chromosomal Copy Number Variation” selected for oral presentation at the 14th annual RECOMB/ISCB Conference on Regulatory & Systems Genomics.
• Justin's preprint work with Yosef lab, "Deep generative modeling for quantifying sample-level heterogeneity in single-cell omics" published in Biorxiv.
• The lab receives a Columbia Cancer-Engineering Seed Grant in collaboration with Dr. Brent Stockwell
• Achille and Joy's paper accepted at the Workshop on Computational Biology at ICML and receives best poster presentation award.
• Cameron and Shouvik's paper accepted at the Workshop on Computational Biology at ICML and receives contributed talk award.
• The lab receives an NSF CAREER Award 
• Joy's preprint in collaboration with the Izar lab, "Multi-modal single-cell and whole-genome sequencing of minute, frozen specimens to propel clinical applications", published in Biorxiv. ​
• The lab receives a Columbia Provost's Grant for contributing to the diversity goals of the University

2021

• Our paper "Mapping the evolution of T cell states during response and resistance to adoptive cellular therapy" is published in  Cell Reports .​  Highlighted in Theory Lab Podcast discussion led by American Cancer Society.
• Yinuo Jin receives the Presidential Distinguished Fellowship
• The lab is featured in Columbia Engineering Magazine story on AI in Health and Medicine
• Xueer, Joy, Cameron and Lauren's paper accepted at Workshop on Computational Biology at ICML
• Azizi lab selected for funding in the Columbia Research Initiatives in Science & Engineering competition with Dr. Benjamin Izar and Dr. Richard Carvajal

2020

• Yinuo and Alex's paper accepted at LMRL Workshop at NeurIPS
• The lab awarded HICCC Intra/InterProgrammatic Pilot grant, with Dr. Ran Reshef 
• The lab featured in Columbia Engineering Magazine Faculty Q&A  
• Joy receives the Van C. Mow fellowship 
• Cameron receives the Kaganov fellowship
• Columbia University Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center features our research 
• Columbia University Bio Bytes Podcast chat with Elham
• The lab receives an R00 Pathway to Independence Award from NIH/NCI
• Azizi lab awarded Data Science Institute Seed Grant in partnership with IICD, with Dr. Jellert Gaublomme and Dr. Brent Stockwell​​

recent & upcoming INVITED Talks

• Cell Growth and Proliferation Gordon Research Conference, July 2023.
• NCI Cancer AI Research: Computational Approaches Addressing Imperfect Data Workshop, April 2023.
• Stanford Computational and Systems Immunology, March 2023.
• ASTCT Transplantation & Cellular Therapy Meeting, February 2023.
• Weill Cornell Medicine ICB Seminar Series, October 2022.
• JSM 2022 Special Session on Statistical methods for single cell genomics and spatial transcriptomics, August 2022.
• Probing Human Disease Using Single-Cell Technologies Fusion Conference, May 2022
• Keynote Speaker, University of Pennsylvania Bioengineering Graduate Research Symposium, April 2022.
• Keynote Speaker, Women in Science at Columbia (WISC) Graduate Research Symposium, April 2022.
• Dept. of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, March 2022.
• NIAID Data Science Seminar, December 2021.
• UNC Computational Medicine Seminar, November 2021.
• Johns Hopkins Biomedical Engineering Seminar Series, November 2021.
• Redirected Immune Cell Therapies Webinar, The New York Academy of Sciences, September 2021.
• University of Washington Machine Learning in Computational Biology Seminar Series, May 2021. 
• NYU Biomedical Engineering Colloquium, April 2021.
• ENAR Invited session on Bulk deconvolution and single-cell data analysis, March 2021.
• NYU Pathology Department Research Seminar Series, March 2021.​