Sema4 names IBM Research veteran as first chief science officer

Stamford AI-driven genomic and clinical data intelligence platform company Sema4 has appointed Gustavo Stolovitzky to the newly established senior leadership position of chief science officer.

Stolovitzky is an expert in computational biology, disease modeling and nano-biotechnology, with over 25 years of experience in high throughput data analysis for biology and the application of technology to solve biomedical problems.

At Sema4, he will have a key role in developing the strategic research direction of the company.

Sema4 founder and CEO Eric Schadt said the new CSO”™s “deep expertise in algorithm development and disease modeling along with his pioneering efforts at objective evaluation of algorithmic accuracy will be key to accelerating the development of our platform of algorithms to help researchers, health systems, providers, and patients translate the information contained in health data into actionable knowledge.

“Gustavo will lead the translation of the top-notch research done at our company into future Sema4 products and intensify our collaborative partnerships with health systems and the biopharmaceutical industry,” Schadt added.

Stolovitzky spent 23 years at IBM Research, where he was appointed IBM Fellow, the highest technical honor bestowed by IBM. His most recent role was the founding chair of the Exploratory Life Sciences Program at IBM Research. Previously, he was the director of the Translational Systems Biology and Nanobiotechnology Program.

He is best known as the founder and chair emeritus of the DREAM Challenges, an effort to bring rigor and reproducibility to algorithm development in life sciences through competition-driven problem solving. He formed a community of more than 25,000 researchers applying AI to biomedicine and championed the values of open science and data sharing.