Maizie (Xin) Zhou, assistant professor of biomedical engineering and computer science, is the recipient of a $1.9 million award from the National Institutes of Health. She has also received $120,000 from Complete Genomics, a leader in human genome sequencing.
The Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA)(R35) from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIH) will support Zhou’s research on designing the next generation of computational genomics algorithms for the detection of challenging variations of the human genome known as structural variants, using cutting-edge, high-throughput sequencing data.
“This effort is expected to have a major impact in the understanding of complex diseases that have defied efforts with traditional sequencing methods,” said Zhou, who joined Vanderbilt in 2020.
She will use funding from Complete Genomics to improve computational tools for assembly and genome-wide variant detection using a recent DNA sequencing technology, called single-tube long fragment read sequencing.
Contact: Lucas Johnson, 615-343-0137
lucas.l.johnson@vanderbilt.edu