Orly Alter
Assistant Professor
Biomedical Engineering
Phone: (512) 471-7939
Fax: (512) 471-2149
Email: orlyal@mail.utexas.edu
Dr. Alter's Web site
Dr. Orly Alter earned her Ph.D. in applied physics at Stanford University in 1999. She joined the College of Engineering faculty in 2004.
Dr. Alter models large-scale molecular biological data, such as data measured by DNA microarrays. These recently developed devices record the activities of thousands of genes simultaneously, and can monitor the complete genomic signals that guide cellular processes. Alter develops mathematical and computational frameworks and applies them to data from studies of the cell division cycle and cancer, creating models of these cellular programs. She demonstrated the power of her models to predict previously unknown biological principles by predicting a regulation mechanism that correlates the beginning of DNA replication with RNA transcription, the process where DNA is transferred to RNA, during the cell division cycle. She is now carrying out experiments designed to test her prediction. Alter ultimately hopes to help bring about a future where physicians model and control biological systems as readily as engineers model and control physical systems today. This will bring new levels of accuracy and precision to medical diagnosis, treatment and drug design.
Research interests:
- Genomic signal processing
- Systems biology
- Matrix and tensor computations
- Cell division cycle and cancer