Raphael Gottardo, PhD

Dr. Raphael Gottardo is a computational biologist who specializes in applying rapidly evolving ideas in data science to solving problems in cancer and related diseases. As scientific director of the Translational Data Science Integrated Research Center, he is at the center of the busy intersection of biology, data science and technology at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

His goal is to expand data-driven innovations for patients by cultivating a cross-disciplinary environment in which doctors and laboratory scientists work seamlessly with their colleagues in biostatistics and computational sciences to take advantage of the flood of information made possible by advanced technologies. 

The aim is to bring scientific discoveries from research labs to the bedside sooner using data-driven approaches. To do so, bench scientists and clinical researchers from many corners of the Hutch work collaboratively with experts in data science.

Much of his work is focused on profiling the cellular components of the human immune system – using data science to understand how to make immunotherapies work better for patients. 

“It’s when you get into the details that it really becomes interesting,” he said. “The immune system is very complex, and it turns out we don’t know a whole lot about it yet. Looking at these single-cell technologies generating massive amounts of data has brought me to really cool statistical and computational challenges.”

Dr. Gottardo’s own research involves the development of computational tools for vaccine and immunology studies, including high-throughput experiments that may use flow cytometry or high-speed genome sequencing. His current studies include:
•	Statistical and computational analysis of flow cytometry data
•	Development of statistical and computational methods for single-cell genomics
•	Immune responses to malaria and HIV infection and immunization within the Human Immunology Project Consortium (HIPC)
•	Development of the HIPC database and research portal (www.immunespace.org)
•	Contribution to the Bioconductor project, an open computing resource for genomics
•	Leadership for the Vaccine and Immunology Statistical Center of the Collaboration for AIDS Vaccine Discovery of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
•	Leadership for the Vaccine Statistical Support (VSS) Global Health Vaccine Accelerating Platform (GH-VAP) of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Dr. Gottardo is the J. Orin Edson Foundation Endowed Chair at Fred Hutch and a member of the Vaccine and Infectious Disease and Public Health Sciences Divisions. He, along with other Fred Hutch researchers, is co-leading a collaboration with the Allen Institute for Immunology to chart the human immune system by harnessing big data and emerging technologies.

An affiliate professor of statistics at the University of Washington, he teaches courses in stochastic modeling, bioinformatics and statistical computing and supervises biostatistics and statistics doctoral students on statistical-methods research for high-dimensional omics data analysis