Dr. Okawa received his PhD in mass spectrometry-based proteomics from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany. He then performed his postdoctoral training in computational systems biology at the LCSB, where he and his colleagues developed and applied computational systems biology tools for tackling biological problems, especially those related to stem cell biology and regenerative medicine. His group develops mathematical and computational approaches using multiple sources of biological information (e.g. transcriptomics, epigenomics, proteomics) and clinical data in order to build network-based models that consider key molecular characteristics underlying these cellular and disease processes. Dr. Okawa’s work is highly collaborative, and he will establish relationships with several VMI and Cardiology investigators to use his computational expertise to advance their bench research.
Dr. Okawa’s work has been featured in premier journals including Nature Communications and Nature. He will be joining the Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiology as an Assistant Professor.