Tommaso Biancalani - Distinguished Scientist and Director, AI/ML

Tommaso Biancalani

Distinguished Scientist and Director, AI/ML

Postdoc Mentor
"Unraveling complex patterns from data is key to advance biomedical discovery. Modern AI offers the tools to accomplish that."
2
Years at Genentech

I trained as a statistical physicist researching emergent behaviors for many body systems.  I did my post-doctoral training at the Carl Woese Institute of Genomics and MIT, where I analyzed different kinds of biological data, combining conventional statistics with mathematical and predictive modelling.   In 2018 I joined the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard to lead our deep learning effort for building the Human Cell Atlas. In 2021, I moved to Genentech to run the AI/ML department in Research Biology.  In my parallel life, I pursue my interests in writing open source software, cybersecurity, and developing the Linux system.

Postdoctoral Mentor

Post-doctoral years are a unique time where a scientist has enough experience to develop their own direction without the responsibility of a group leader. These transitional years can be challenging. But with the proper mentorship and guidance, one can learn how to develop their ideas into a mature research program.  As a dedicated mentor, I commit a substantial part of my time to help my postdocs identify key questions in drug development where they can develop cutting-edge algorithms. Our team has deep expertise and is embedded within the leading drug development community.

Featured Publication

Deep learning and alignment of spatially-resolved whole transcriptomes of single cells in the mouse brain with Tangram.

biorxiv 272831v3 (2020)

Biancalani, Scalia et al.