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Animesh Ray

Riggs School of Applied Life Sciences, Keck Graduate Institute, California Institute of Technology, Keck Graduate Institute

ORCID iD 0000-0002-0120-5820
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About

Animesh Ray is a geneticist by training, and has contributed to several important discoveries involving genetic analysis:
molecular mechanisms of DNA recombination;
post-transcriptional regulation by microRNA of genes important for cell differentiation, development and diseases;
and the genetic dissection of developmental processes.

Over the past 20 years he has also contributed important insights into the unification of genetic concepts with computational sciences.

Animesh has a broad background in molecular biology and genetics, as well as in computational biology. He has published in all of these areas, including a recent book on Systems Biology (http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781584884637).

His work in 1980s and 90s were early reports of in vivo chromosomal double-strand breaks to promote homologous recombination, which has now seen maturity in CRISPR/Cas9 mediated gene targeting.

His laboratory at the University of Rochester had discovered all known Dicer group of genes in plants; in fact, these genes were the first Dicer genes discovered in any organism and were first patented by Animesh and his student Teresa Golden.

Besides contributing fundamental insights into developmental biology, Animesh designed one of the first few DNA-based nano-computing paradigms in collaboration with Dr. Mitsunori Ogihara, and contributed theoretical insights into parallel computing over about 10 years.

His laboratory at KGI studies systems biology, where they discovered the first genome-wide dosage suppressor network in yeast. He has also contributed original ideas, experimental design, and data-analytics expertise to cancer research, which have been published in a series of research papers in 2010-21.

Animesh has thus demonstrated his ability to successfully move across scientific paradigms while contributing pioneering insights into each area, successfully leading complex multi-PI and multi-disciplinary projects funded by NSF, DoD, DARPA, NIH, various private foundations, and to think “outside of the box” for novel solutions. For example, his work on Huntington’s Disease had attracted funding from the CHDI Foundation.

Ongoing work in his laboratory includes Huntington’s Disease, lung cancer, melanoma and medulloblastoma computational genomics, and synthetic biology (in vitro evolution of enzymes and organisms, funded by biotechnology corporations), and now, significantly, computational prediction of antibody sequences against a given antigenic epitope, using artificial intelligence.

In 2021, he was awarded an NIH Director's Award for Transformative Research.

He has successfully led large (4-8) groups of PIs in multi-institutional research grants and in corporate research contexts, and was a member of multiple steering committees/panels for NSF Engineering Research Centers. He is in the Scientific Advisory Boards of several companies.

Employment

  • Riggs School of Applied Life Sciences, Keck Graduate Institute W. M. Keck Foundation Professor of Systems, Computational, and Molecular Biology
    2025 - Present
  • California Institute of Technology Visiting Faculty Associate
    2016 - Present
  • Keck Graduate Institute Professor
    2001 - Present
  • University of Rochester Assistant & Associate Professor
    1991 - 2001
  • MIT Postdoctoral Fellow
    1989 - 1991
  • University of Oregon Postdoctoral Associate
    1984 - 1988

Education

Education history is unavailable.

Projects & Funding

Projects & funding information is unavailable.

Publications (76)