Biography
Dr. Wall received his doctoral degree in Integrative Biology from the University of California, Berkeley in 2001. At Berkeley, Dr. Wall worked on reconstructing evolutionary phenomena including adaptive radiations, key innovations and patterns of diversification using molecular phylogenetics and population genetic theory. His research on an obscure and unstudied group of moss led him to numerous localities in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific in an effort to track this plant lineage's route of dispersal from its point of origin, Malaysia, to one of its last landing points, Tahiti. He then modeled the groups' island-stepping stone pattern of diversification, finding it to be among the fastest radiations now known. These studies led him to work on deciphering the importance of natural selection on coding sequences. He and his colleagues developed statistical improvements to the way preferred use of equivalent codons is measured, and in turn provided some key insights to the selectional link between genotype and phenotype in green plants.
In his post-doctoral studies, in the laboratory of Professor Marcus Feldman at Stanford University, Dr. Wall continued his interest in evolution, studying functional determinants of protein evolution in yeast and close relatives. Dr. Wall and colleagues developed novel approaches to integrative genomics that allowed the study of protein change in relation to such variables as protein interactivity, translation rate, and the importance of a protein to an organism's survival. In addition, he worked on novel approaches to predicting antigen recognition sites in bacterial pathogens. In a collaboration with Exelixis Pharmaceuticals, a genomics-based drug discovery company in South San Francisco, Dr. Wall helped design software to detect general sequence motifs, including functional RNA and transcription factor binding sites, to help identify valid targets for genetic screening.
Dr. Wall was recruited to Harvard Medical School in 2003 to construct and lead the Computational Biology Initiative in the Department of Systems Biology. As Director of this group, Dr. Wall leveraged his expertise in computational biology to begin developing a research program in translational bioinformatics, focused on the analysis of functional networks to improve our understanding of complex disease.
This research focus naturally fit within the overarching aims of the newly formed Center for Biomedical Informatics at Harvard Medical School. In 2006, Dr. Wall joined the CBMI as one of the first faculty members. Since then, his lab has been working in three primary areas: (1.) Comparative genomics for discovery of molecular function (2.) Knowledge-driven analysis of high-throughput experimental databases to find functional networks (3.) Use of 1 and 2 to construct disease networks, with principal focus on neurological disorders. These aims are united by a common desire to develop a clear picture of the genotype-to-phenotype map of Autism Spectrum Disorder that identifies causal molecular motifs responsible for co-morbid behaviors such as epilepsy, seizures, mental retardation, and schizophrenia, and that ultimately leads to a set of genetic markers that can be used for improved diagnosis, prognosis, and cures.
Dr. Wall has received numerous awards, including an NSF postdoctoral fellowship, the Fred R. Cagle Award for Outstanding Achievement in Biology, the Vice Chancellor's Award for Research, three awards for excellence in teaching, and a Harvard Medical School Leadership award. |
