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What kind of projects have you worked on in the past that have prepared you for this one?
Dr. Royyuru: I’ve studied human biology, molecular biology, protein structures, and the application of biological data and computational techniques in areas such as HIV/AIDS and cancer. The complexity of data for this project is incredible – the genotype consisting of markers on the mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome, the phenotype consisting of descriptors for geographic, linguistic, ethnic, and more -- so my background is very useful.
What brought you to IBM Research originally?
Dr. Royyuru: It’s the potential for this type of research that brought me here. My expertise leant itself to either being in academia or conducting research in a corporate setting. Of course, I knew about the research being done at IBM, and knew that the company allowed for fairly basic research. But the passion for basic research that I found here was thrilling and surprising. There are very few places where that exists.
What are you doing on a day-to-day basis? Is this one project all-consuming?
Dr. Royyuru: Fortunately, that passion for basic research is carrying me through the day-to-day process of organizing a project of this magnitude and still maintaining my other responsibilities. You would think it would be all-consuming, but it’s not! I’m still doing my day job -– managing the Computational Biology Center, and while that group is doing very important work and it’s a demanding job to manage it, the Genographic Project is one area for which I’m doing the research myself.
My biggest obstacle is bridging the gap between biologists and geneticists who speak one language, and the computer scientists and mathematicians who speak another. I’m also busy setting goals and determining how best to achieve them, as well as joining my team in teaching ourselves all we can about population genetics. There is plenty to learn.
As you continue to learn more and expand the IBM team, what kind of skills are you looking for in the people you bring into this project?
Dr. Royyuru: In addition to the IBMers already on the team, we are bringing in a new researcher who specializes in applied mathematics, data mining and machine learning as they apply to biological data. Also, we’ll have a student who is working on population genetics joining us this summer as an intern.
And beyond the IBM Research team, who else is involved?
Dr. Royyuru: In addition to the team working at IBM Research’s headquarters, there is a global team of field scientists who are doing sequencing for the volunteer participants in ten worldwide sites, including locations in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, South Africa, India, China, Australia, Brazil, Russia and Lebanon. The interaction between the IBM team and the global scientific team has gotten off to a really good start with monthly meetings where we discuss objectives and progress. The steps we’re taking have already been very collaborative in nature. I anticipate there will be field visits for our team, as well as having their researchers visit our labs here.
This collaboration will surely intensify as the project unfolds over the next five years. Do you have a clear vision of what you would like to achieve in that time?
Dr. Royyuru: Most definitely. When this is over, as a company and as people, we will have a much more in depth understanding of human migration. As a company, IBM will have learned to find even more ways of making information work for people – and we’ll be able to teach ourselves to do even more for our clients and for the world at large. But the reach of this project goes far beyond the corporation. What we find and what we will learn will be here forever. And the best part is that the project isn’t restricted to the lab – every individual can participate, which means that this has the potential to touch every person in the world.
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