Toshiro Ohsumi

Passionate about driving innovation in therapeutics startups, with a focus on bioinformatics that has directly contributed to an FDA-approved drug and two IPOs. As a former Head of Bioinformatics, I specialized in developing CRISPR-engineered B cell-based therapies for targeted protein secretion, addressing critical medical needs in areas like immunology and oncology.

My background includes pioneering work in oncology drug development, utilizing synthetic lethality and advanced analytics for genome-wide CRISPR screens and cancer data mining. This experience has also involved co-developing a whole-genome CRISPR screen algorithm, which has led to promising clinical results, including an ATR inhibitor now in Phase 1 trials.

At Google, I expanded the reach of the featured snippets feature, an integral part of Google's search experience that delivers concise answers at the top of search results. My contributions doubled snippet usage in India, showcasing my expertise in C++ and Python for production software on a global scale.

In addition, I’m the principal developer of MolBioLib, a C++11 framework designed to accelerate bioinformatics tool development. As a foundational tool, it has supported analysis pipelines in over 15 publications and has been a core component in three startups for their primary analytical pipelines. To expand its functionality, I integrated Perl and R, enhancing the framework's adaptability and enabling more robust bioinformatics solutions.

My expertise spans a range of high-impact bioinformatics applications, including microarray, Sanger, and next-generation sequencing, with deep experience in analyzing and integrating complex data types such as RNA-Seq, RIP-Seq, ChIP-Seq, chromosomal conformation, and bacterial 16S regions. With a background in large-scale production software, massively parallel systems, and nonlinear PDEs, I’m skilled in translating complex data into actionable insights.

Specialties: C++, Perl, R, bioinformatics, algorithms, natural language processing, microbiome, CRISPR, synthetic lethality, numerical analysis, finite element methods, and large-scale cloud computing environments.

• Senior Director, Head of Bioinformatics at Be Biopharma

• Ph.D. in computer science, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
  • Numerical analysis
  • Adaptive finite element method for nonlinear biomechanical engineering equations