{"id":373631,"date":"2017-03-28T06:00:49","date_gmt":"2017-03-28T13:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/?p=373631"},"modified":"2017-05-17T15:06:57","modified_gmt":"2017-05-17T22:06:57","slug":"cancer-crop-genomics-using-research-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/blog\/cancer-crop-genomics-using-research-service\/","title":{"rendered":"From cancer to crop genomics \u2014 using Research as a Service at the intersection of computers and biology"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Kenji Takeda<\/em> (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>, Director, Azure for Research, AI and Research<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Nicola

Nicola Bonzanni, Co-Founder, ENPICOM<\/p><\/div>\n

Ever since Nicola Bonzanni was a little boy playing in the tiny Italian village of Bonate Sotto, just north of Milan, he was fascinated by nature and by building things. As he grew up, he wondered how computing and nature might be intertwined. \u201cWhile I was studying computer science I was inspired by nature in building new algorithms. But then I thought perhaps you could do it the other way around, basically taking things that are being developed in computer science and apply them to biological problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

After finishing his master\u2019s thesis, he looked for opportunities to pursue his dream. He met a Dutch researcher while at a workshop in the south of France. The team at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam was looking for a PhD student, so they interviewed Nicola. Despite his fears about his English proficiency, his passion for combining computer science and biology came across. Professor Jakob (Jaap) Heringa was impressed. \u201cThe fact that he already seemed to be able to combine computer science and life sciences was a very good sign to us, and we decided to hire him based on that.\u201d So Nicola packed his bags and moved to Amsterdam, even though he had never been there before.<\/p>\n

The next stop on Nicola\u2019s path was developing novel methods for analyzing sequences of genes to look at how they evolve through a process known as phylogenetic fingerprinting. He teamed up with Professor Berthold G\u00f6ttgens at the University of Cambridge to apply computer science to better understand leukemia, particularly how different genes in blood cells interact with each other.<\/p>\n