Biography

MS, 1985, Novosibirsk State University, Mathematical Biology

PhD, 1990, Institute of Cytology and Genetics

Fellowship, 1993, Pennsylvania State University, Molecular Evolutionary Genetics/Biology

Selected publications

Prevalence of Common Disease Conditions in a Large Cohort of Individuals With Down Syndrome in the United States.
Chicoine B, Rivelli A, Fitzpatrick V, Chicoine L, Jia G, Rzhetsky A. Prevalence of Common Disease Conditions in a Large Cohort of Individuals With Down Syndrome in the United States. J Patient Cent Res Rev. 2021; 8(2):86-97.
PMID: 33898640

Automated microfluidic platform for dynamic and combinatorial drug screening of tumor organoids.
Schuster B, Junkin M, Kashaf SS, Romero-Calvo I, Kirby K, Matthews J, Weber CR, Rzhetsky A, White KP, Tay S. Automated microfluidic platform for dynamic and combinatorial drug screening of tumor organoids. Nat Commun. 2020 10 19; 11(1):5271.
PMID: 33077832

HOME2: Household vs. Personalized Decolonization in Households of Children with Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Skin and Soft Tissue Infection - A Randomized Clinical Trial.
Hogan PG, Parrish KL, Mork RL, Boyle MG, Muenks CE, Thompson RM, Morelli JJ, Sullivan ML, Hunstad DA, Wardenburg JB, Rzhetsky A, Gehlert SJ, Burnham CD, Fritz SA. HOME2: Household vs. Personalized Decolonization in Households of Children with Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Skin and Soft Tissue Infection - A Randomized Clinical Trial. Clin Infect Dis. 2020 Jun 10.
PMID: 32521007

Measurable health effects associated with the daylight saving time shift.
Zhang H, Dahlén T, Khan A, Edgren G, Rzhetsky A. Measurable health effects associated with the daylight saving time shift. PLoS Comput Biol. 2020 06; 16(6):e1007927.
PMID: 32511231

Environmental Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus Contamination, Persistent Colonization, and Subsequent Skin and Soft Tissue Infection.
Hogan PG, Mork RL, Thompson RM, Muenks CE, Boyle MG, Sullivan ML, Morelli JJ, Williams CV, Sanchez N, Hunstad DA, Wardenburg JB, Gehlert SJ, Burnham CD, Rzhetsky A, Fritz SA. Environmental Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus Contamination, Persistent Colonization, and Subsequent Skin and Soft Tissue Infection. JAMA Pediatr. 2020 06 01; 174(6):552-562.
PMID: 32227144

Electronic health record phenotypes associated with genetically regulated expression of CFTR and application to cystic fibrosis.
Zhong X, Yin Z, Jia G, Zhou D, Wei Q, Faucon A, Evans P, Gamazon ER, Li B, Tao R, Rzhetsky A, Bastarache L, Cox NJ. Electronic health record phenotypes associated with genetically regulated expression of CFTR and application to cystic fibrosis. Genet Med. 2020 07; 22(7):1191-1200.
PMID: 32296164

Estimating heritability and genetic correlations from large health datasets in the absence of genetic data.
Jia G, Li Y, Zhang H, Chattopadhyay I, Boeck Jensen A, Blair DR, Davis L, Robinson PN, Dahlén T, Brunak S, Benson M, Edgren G, Cox NJ, Gao X, Rzhetsky A. Estimating heritability and genetic correlations from large health datasets in the absence of genetic data. Nat Commun. 2019 12 03; 10(1):5508.
PMID: 31796735

Longitudinal, strain-specific Staphylococcus aureus introduction and transmission events in households of children with community-associated meticillin-resistant S aureus skin and soft tissue infection: a prospective cohort study.
Mork RL, Hogan PG, Muenks CE, Boyle MG, Thompson RM, Sullivan ML, Morelli JJ, Seigel J, Orscheln RC, Bubeck Wardenburg J, Gehlert SJ, Burnham CD, Rzhetsky A, Fritz SA. Longitudinal, strain-specific Staphylococcus aureus introduction and transmission events in households of children with community-associated meticillin-resistant S aureus skin and soft tissue infection: a prospective cohort study. Lancet Infect Dis. 2020 02; 20(2):188-198.
PMID: 31784369

Environmental pollution is associated with increased risk of psychiatric disorders in the US and Denmark.
Khan A, Plana-Ripoll O, Antonsen S, Brandt J, Geels C, Landecker H, Sullivan PF, Pedersen CB, Rzhetsky A. Environmental pollution is associated with increased risk of psychiatric disorders in the US and Denmark. PLoS Biol. 2019 08; 17(8):e3000353.
PMID: 31430271

Centralized scientific communities are less likely to generate replicable results.
Danchev V, Rzhetsky A, Evans JA. Centralized scientific communities are less likely to generate replicable results. Elife. 2019 07 02; 8.
PMID: 31264964

Research interests

My research is focused on computational analysis of complex human phenotypes in context of changes and perturbations of underlying molecular networks. The input data for these studies is supplied by large-scale mining of free text, computation over clinical records, and high-throughput systems biology experiments.

My main interest is in gaining an (asymptotic) understanding how phenotypes, such as human healthy diversity and maladies, are implemented at the level of genes and networks of interacting molecules.

To harvest as much information about known molecular interactions as possible, my group runs a large-scale text-mining effort aiming at analysis of a vast corpus of biomedical publications. Currently we can extract from text automatically about 500 distinct flavors of relations among biomedical entities (such as bind, activate, merystilate, and transport).

To sharpen our text-mining axes, we are actively designing related models and computational applications. Furthermore, in cooperation with our experimentally talented colleagues, we are striving to use text-mined networks to understand, interpret and refine high- or low-throughput experimental data. We are also computationally generating biological hypotheses that our generous collaborators are attempting to test experimentally.

My older passion is in developing and applying computational methods related to phylogenetics and evolutionary biology.

BPHYS Student

Ryan Mork, PhD