Principal investigator
Brian D. Athey
Michael A. Savageau Legacy Professor; Chair, Department of Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics; Professor of Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics; Professor of Psychiatry
Principal Investigator
Research
Research areas
- Single molecule sequencing
- Pharmacogenomics
- Translational bioinformatics
- AI platform development
- Agentic Infrastructures for Research Activities
Training
Education
- B.S.Biochemistry (minors Physics and Mathematics), University of Michigan-Dearborn (1982)
- Ph.D.Biophysics, University of Michigan (1990)
- PostdocNIH Postdoctoral Fellowships, University of Michigan Medical School (1990-1993)
Recognition
Honors and awards
- Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of ScienceAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science, 2020curriculum vitae of Brian D. Athey, updated October 2025
- Fellow, American College of Medical InformaticsAmerican Medical Informatics Association, 2014curriculum vitae of Brian D. Athey, updated October 2025
- First Michael A. Savageau Collegiate ProfessorUniversity of Michigan Medical School, 2012curriculum vitae of Brian D. Athey, updated October 2025
- Outstanding Achievement Award for Excellence in Bioinformatics and BioEngineering ResearchIEEE 7th International Conference on Bioinformatics and BioEngineering, 2007curriculum vitae of Brian D. Athey, updated October 2025
- Peace FellowshipFederation of American Scientists, for his work with DARPA to counter biological terrorism, 2005
Funding
Grants and projects
Ongoing
- CSI-Rogel Seed Grant 2026: Resolving TAR1 genetic and epigenetic variation underlying TERRA dysregulation in ALT-positive cancersA one-year joint project of the Cancer Science Institute of Singapore, where Dennis Kappei is Principal Investigator, and the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center, where Brian Athey is Principal Investigator, selected in the institute's CSI-Rogel Seed Grant 2026 round. Project period August 2026 to July 2027.
- Long-Read Sequencing and Pharmacometabolic Profiling in Breast Cancer PatientsA joint project of the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center and the National Cancer Centre Singapore (NCCS), where Balram Chowbay is Professor of Clinical Pharmacology. It applies targeted long-read sequencing to identify structurally complex CYP2D6 diplotypes and relate them to pharmacometabolic profiles in breast cancer patients treated with tamoxifen.
- VIOLIN 2.0: Vaccine Information and Ontology LInked kNowledgebaseTo promote community-wide data and metadata standardization and analysis, advance the understanding of vaccine mechanisms, and support rational vaccine mechanism study and rational vaccine design against various infectious diseases, leading to safer public health. Project period August 2022 to May 2027.
- University of Michigan O'Brien Kidney Translational Resource Center (MKTC)A national resource for kidney research. Through its research cores, enrichment activities, and community outreach, the center gives investigators the infrastructure and tools to apply advanced technologies to acute kidney injury and chronic kidney disease, supporting basic, clinical, and translational kidney research. Project period September 2023 to June 2028.
- NIH: The Role of Epithelial Barrier Dysfunction in Food AnaphylaxisFood allergy affects nearly ten percent of the United States population, and misdiagnosis leads to difficult, anxiety-provoking, and growth-limiting food avoidance. Current diagnostic tools are inaccurate or require ingesting possible food allergens under medical monitoring, which is cumbersome, risky, and costly. The project studies the role of leaky skin and gut barriers in food allergy to develop more accurate and less onerous diagnostic tests.
- COMPASS: A Comprehensive Mobile Precision Approach for Scalable Solutions in Mental Health TreatmentApplies machine learning to genomic, active and passive mobile behavioral-tracking, and EHR data from a large cohort before and during digital and clinic-based mental health care, to develop individualized prediction models that optimize mental health treatments. Primary place of performance is the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; project period July 2024 to April 2029.
Background
Brian D. Athey earned a B.S. in Biochemistry at the University of Michigan-Dearborn (1982) and a Ph.D. in Biophysics at the University of Michigan (1990), with a dissertation on the structure of chromatin fibers, followed by 2 NIH postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Michigan Medical School. He is the Michael A. Savageau Legacy Professor and Chair of the Department of Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics at the University of Michigan Medical School, where he is Professor of Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics and Professor of Psychiatry. He also advises the Executive Vice President and Dean of Michigan Medicine on artificial intelligence.
He has served as Michigan Medicine Chief Information Officer, as the Medical School's Academic Informatics lead, and as elected chair of the UM Medical School Endowment for the Basic Sciences (2020 to 2022), coordinating its ten academic basic science departments. He co-founded and co-directed the University of Michigan Institute for Data Science (MIDAS) from 2015 to 2018, is a founding member of the Peking University Health Sciences Center-UM Joint Institute faculty and served as its first co-director of biomedical informatics, and was lead life and medical sciences consultant to the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen from 2015 to 2020. He is an elected fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics (2014) and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2020), and received the Federation of American Scientists' 2005 Peace Fellowship for his work with DARPA to counter biological terrorism.
As a graduate student, Athey proposed the double helical crossed-linker model for chromatin, now considered its correct structural motif, and performed the first published cryo-electron microscopy experiment, on chromatin, a technique now standard worldwide. Trained also in biomedical optics, he shared a laboratory for ten years with off-axis holography inventor Emmett Leith and performed the first real-time, live-cell two-photon confocal imaging experiment in the laboratory of Nobelist Gerard Mourou. He has since served as principal investigator of national biomedical informatics centers and consortia including the NLM Visible Human Project, the DARPA Telepathology and Virtual Soldier Projects, and the NIH National Center for Integrative Biomedical Informatics; directed the Michigan Center for Biological Information; was a founding associate director of the UM Michigan Institute for Clinical and Health Research (host of the UM Clinical and Translational Science Award); and is a founding member of the UM Depression Center, the first of its kind in North America. Over his career he has co-authored more than 130 peer-reviewed papers and conference proceedings and holds 8 issued patents, with more than 40 further US and international applications in the provisional pipeline.
He has been an advisor to more than ten biotechnology companies, including scientific advisory board and corporate advisor roles, chaired the Scientific Advisory Board of Assurex Health (Mason, Ohio) from 2011 to 2018 (acquired by Myriad Genetics and now Myriad Neuroscience), and is co-founder and Chief Science and Technology Officer of Phenomics Health Inc. (Ann Arbor, MI), which provides next-generation pharmacogenomics services to patients, physicians, and healthcare systems.