Dr. Vincent Ferretti, a researcher with a background that bridges biology, mathematics and computer science, has joined the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research's (OICR) Informatics and Biocomputing Platform as a Principal Investigator and Senior Scientist.

Ferretti completed a B.Sc. in mathematical physics and a PhD in mathematics from the Université de Montréal, followed by three years of postdoctoral study in computational biology at the Mathematical Research Centre of the Université de Montréal. He later served as an adjunct professor in the school of computer science at McGill University in Montreal.

At OICR, Ferretti will develop innovative databases, software and other informatics tools to collect and analyse data from the cancer genomics laboratory, as well as integrate it with clinical and other research datasets. As a principal investigator, Ferretti will alsodevelop an independent research program that may be related to analyzing datasets produced by OICR programs.

"It's very exciting to have Dr. Ferretti here because he's done foundational work in designing computer systems to manage large-scale genotyping and disease association studies. He is also a driving force in the Public Population Project in Genomics Consortium (P3G) effort, which is an international effort to standardize methods for patient recruitment, consent, data security and data sharing for population genetics research. We look forward to him being able to offer his expertise to OICR's programs," says Dr. Lincoln Stein, Director of OICR's Informatics and Biocomputing Platform.

Ferretti will also help OICR disseminate data to the broader research community. He will develop a bioinformatics program for open source biobanking, which will be applied to cohort studies and other relevant Canadian initiatives, such as those co-sponsored by the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer.

“Our aim is to build a high-performing open source software suite for genomics epidemiological studies that is freely available to the international community of biobanks in collaboration with the P3G,” says Ferretti.

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