Ph.D., Computer Science, University of California, Santa Cruz, 2003 M.S., Computer Science, University of California, Santa Cruz, 2000 B.S., Computer Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz, 1998

Genetic variation is critical to our susceptibility to diseases and response to medications. Yet the functional consequences of most genetic variants are unknown. We are working to predict these consequences using computation, by integrating information from molecular modeling and sequence analysis with clinical patient data and in vitro functional studies, through collaborations with physicians, genetic counselors, and experimental biologists. We are particularly interested in inherited cancer susceptibilities and gain of function mutations in tumor genomes.

Masica DL, Douville C, Tokheim C, Bhattacharya R, Kim R, Moad K, Ryan MC, Karchin R (2017) CRAVAT 4: Cancer-Related Analysis of Variants Toolkit. Cancer Research. [in press]. Cai B, Li B, Kiga N, Thusberg J, Bergquist T, Chen YC, Niknafs N, Carter H, Tokheim C, Beleva-Guthrie V, Douville C, Bhattacharya R, Grace Yeo HT, Fan J, Sengupta S, Kim D, Cline M, Turner T, Diekhans M, Zaucha J, Pal LR, Cao C, Yu CH, Yin Y, Carraro M, Giollo M, Ferrari C, Leonardi E, Tosatto SCE, Bobe J, Ball M, Hoskins R, Repo S, Church G, Brenner SE, Moult J, Gough J, Stanke M, Karchin R, Mooney SD (2017) Matching phenotypes to whole genomes: Lessons learned from four iterations of the personal genome project community challenges. Hum Mutat. May 23. doi: 10.1002/humu.23265. [Epub ahead of print] Oetting WS, Béroud C, Brenner SE, Greenblatt M, Karchin R, Mooney SD, Sunyaev S. (2017) Non-Coding Variation: The 2016 Annual Scientific Meeting of the Human Genome Variation Society. Hum Mutat. 38(4):460-463. Masica DL, Dal Molin M, Wolfgang CL, Tomita T, Ostovaneh MR, Blackford A, Moran RA, Law JK, Barkley T, Goggins M, Irene Canto M, Pittman M, Eshleman JR, Ali SZ, Fishman EK, Kamel IR, Raman SP, Zaheer A, Ahuja N, Makary MA, Weiss MJ, Hirose K, Cameron JL, Rezaee N, He J, Joon Ahn Y, Wu W, Wang Y, Springer S, Diaz LL Jr, Papadopoulos N, Hruban RH, Kinzler KW, Vogelstein B, Karchin R, Marie Lennon A (2017) A novel approach for selecting combination clinical markers of pathology applied to a large retrospective cohort of surgically resected pancreatic cysts. J Am Med Inform Assoc Jan;24(1):145-152. Anagnostou V, Smith KN, Forde PM, Niknafs N, Bhattacharya R, White J, Zhang T, Adleff V, Phallen J, Wali N, Hruban C, Guthrie VB, Rodgers K, Naidoo J, Kang H, Sharfman WH, Georgiades C, Verde F, Illei P, Li QK, Gabrielson E, Brock MV, Zahnow CA, Baylin SB, Scharpf R, Brahmer JR, Karchin R, Pardoll DM, Velculescu VE. (2016) Evolution of Neoantigen Landscape During Immune Checkpoint Blockade in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer. Cancer Discov. Dec 28. pii: CD-16-0828. doi: 10.1158/2159-8290.CD-16-0828. [Epub ahead of print] Fu J, Sen R, Masica DL, Karchin R, Pardoll D, Walter V, Hayes DN, Chung CH, Kim YJ. (2016) Autologous reconstitution of human cancer and immune system in vivo. Oncotarget Dec 19. doi: 10.18632/oncotarget.14026. [Epub ahead of print] Tokheim C, Papdopoulis N, Kinzler KW, Vogelstein B, Karchin R (2016) Evaluating the evaluation of cancer driver genes. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. Dec 13;113(50):14330-14335. Karchin R, Nussinov R (2016) Genome landscapes of disease: strategies to predict the phenotypic consequences of human germline and somatic variation. PLoS Comput Biol. Aug 18;12(8):e1005043 Mascia DL, Karchin R (2016) Towards increasing the clinical relevance of in silico methods to predict pathogenic missense variants. PLoS Computational Biology. May 12;12(5):e1004725. Tokheim C, Bhattacharya R, Niknafs N, Gygax DM, Kim R, Ryan M, Masica DL, Karchin R (2016) Exome-scale discovery of hotspot mutation regions in human cancer using 3D protein structure Cancer Research. Apr. 28.pii: canres.3190.2015. [Epub ahead of print] Goes FS, Pirooznia M, Parla JS, Kramer M, Ghiban E, Mavruk S, Chen YC, Monson ET, Willour VL, Karchin R, Flickinger M, Locke AE, Levy SE, Scott LJ, Boehnke M, Stahl E, Moran JL, Hultman CM, Landén M, Purcell SM, Sklar P, Zandi PP, McCombie WR, Potash JB. (2016) Exome sequencing of bipolar disorder JAMA Psychiatry. Jun 1:73(6):590-7 Oetting WS, Brenner SE, Brookes AJ, Greenblatt MS, Hart RK, Karchin R, Sunyaev SR, Taschner PE (2016) Pathogenicity Interpretation in the Age of Precision Medicine: The 2015 Annual Scientific Meeting of the Human Genome Variation Society. Human Mutation. Jan 21. doi: 10.1002/humu.22958. [Epub ahead of print] Rettig EM, Talbot Jr CC, Sausen M, Jones S, Bishop JA, Wood LD, Tokheim C, Niknafs N, Karchin R, Papadopoulos N, Kinzler KW, Vogelstein B, Ha PK, Agrawal N (2016) Whole-genome sequencing of salivary gland adenoid cystic carcinoma. Cancer Prevention Research. Feb 9. pii:canprevres.0316.2015. [Epub ahead of print]. Roberts NJ, Norris A, Petersen GM, Bondy ML, Brand R, Gallinger S, Kurtz RC, Olson SH, Rustgi AK, Schwartz AG, Stofel E, Syngal S, Zogopoulos G, Ali SZ, Axilbund J, Chaffe KG, Chen YC, Cote ML, Childs EJ, Douville C, Goes FS, Herman JM, Iacobuzio-Donahue C, Kramer M, Makohon-Moore A, McCombie WR, McMahon K, Niknafs N, Parla J, Pirooznia M, Potash JB, Rhim AD, Smith AL, Wang Y, Wolofgang CL, Wood LD, Zandi PP, Goggins M, Karchin R, Eshleman J, Papadopoulos N, Kinzler KW, Vogelstein B, Hruban RH, Klein AP (2016) Whole genome sequencing of patients with familial pancreatic cancer Cancer Discovery. Dec 9. pii: CD-15-0402. [Epub ahead of print]. Douville C, Masica DL, Stenson PD, Cooper DN, Gygax D, Kim R, Ryan M, Karchin R (2016) Assessing the pathogenicity of insertion and deletion variants with the Variant Effect Scoring Tool (VEST-indel) Human Mutation. doi: 10.1002/humu.22911 [Epub ahead of print]