René Warren is Group Leader for the Bioinformatics Technology Lab, part of Dr. Inanc Birol's laboratory at the GSC. He provides leadership and scientific oversight to bioinformatics technology development projects with applications in forestry genomics, pathogenomics, immunogenomics and cancer research. René is a genomics researcher with extensive experience in computational biology, as well as scientific research author and regular reviewer for genomics and bioinformatics journals. In his career, he has been at the forefront of innovation, pioneering a number of bioinformatic “firsts”. Among those, SSAKE, the first algorithm for genome assembly with short DNA sequences. Algorithms of SSAKE are the core of many genomics applications and their designs continue to inspire new-generation technologies. Applications of the software extend beyond genome assembly; The innovative technology was applied to profiling T-cell metagenomes, targeted de novo genome sequence assembly (TASR), HLA typing (HLAminer and NMDP Be The Match), breakpoint detection in cancer, genome scaffolding with long reads (LINKS & ARCS), proteome assembly (PASS) and was key to the discovery of Fusobacterium in colon cancer, a finding designated as one of the top 10 medical breakthroughs of 2011 by Time magazine.
Credentials