Bogdan Pasaniuc, PhD

Professor Bogdan Pasaniuc joined Penn as the founding Director of the Center for Computational Biomedicine in Fall 2024. For the previous 12 years, Dr. Pasaniuc led research in statistical and computational genomics at UCLA within the Departments of Computational Medicine, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, and Human Genetics. At Penn, Dr. Pasaniuc leads the nascent MyPennGenome program, which aims to integrate genomic data with AI/ML to improve medical outcomes in Penn Medicine patients.

Dr. Pasaniuc leads the Computational Genomics for Precision Health research group within the Department of Genetics and the Institute for Biomedical Informatics. The group develops statistical and computational methods to understand the genetic basis of disease, focusing on underrepresented populations, integrative genomics, and biobank studies. Dr. Pasaniuc is interested in innovative ML/AI methods to integrate genetics with multi-omic profiles (e.g., epigenetic/transcriptomic) and electronic health records to identify causal genes and pathways for human diseases. Dr. Pasaniuc introduced transcriptome-wide association studies (TWAS) using predicted gene expression as a principled approach to identify disease genes for many traits, such as schizophrenia, ovarian cancer, and prostate cancer.

His main research interest is in precision health, using genomics to predict health outcomes, stratify patients based on their genetic profiles, identify undiagnosed rare diseases, and translate computational algorithms to the clinic.

Dr. Pasaniuc is heavily invested in training the next generation of genomic and biomedical scientists, serving as PI of various NIH-funded training programs, such as the NIH/NLM-T15 training program Biomedical Data Science Training Program for Precision Health Equity at UCLA.