SUMMARY
Jean-Pierre A. Kocher, Ph.D., is a professor of biomedical informatics at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, with expertise in bioinformatics, computational biology and computational chemistry. His research program focuses on improving the diagnosis and treatment of conditions and diseases through the development of novel biomedical informatics methods.
Dr. Kocher joined Mayo Clinic in 2005 to develop the institutional Bioinformatics Core. He was the chair of the Division of Biomedical Statistics and Informatics from 2008 to 2016 and from 2019 to 2021. The division includes faculty with expertise in clinical informatics, biostatistics and bioinformatics. From 2014 to 2019, he also served as associate chair of the Department of Biomedical Informatics at Arizona State University.
Focus areas
- Developing infrastructure to manage clinical and genomics data
- Pre-processing genomics data with an emphasis on the development of highly accurate, optimized and automated workflows
- Interpreting genomic variants with methods to annotate variants with curated knowledge from the literature and other internal or public data sources
- Developing bioinformatics and deep learning methods to integrate clinical and multi-omics data modalities to discover clinical, behavioral and genetic factors driving the onset and progression of diseases
- Prioritizing drug treatment based on a tumor's genomic landscape
Significance to patient care
Dr. Kocher's research contributes to making precision medicine a reality. Biomedical informatics is a cornerstone of precision medicine and is key to the conversion of clinical and genomics data into actionable information to treat patients more precisely. Dr. Kocher's program contributes to advancing individualized patient care in multiple clinical areas including oncologic, cardiovascular, neurodegenerative, and rare, undiagnosed diseases.
Professional highlights
- Research affiliate, Division of Biomedical Statistics and Informatics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2013-present
- Adjunct associate professor, Department of Biomedical Informatics, Arizona State University, 2012-present
- Director, Cancer Center Bioinformatics Shared Resources, Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center, 2008-present
- Adjunct associate professor, University of Minnesota, Rochester, 2008-present
- Full faculty privileges in biochemistry and molecular biology, Mayo Clinic Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, 2007-present
- Director, Bioinformatics Core, Division of Computational Biology, Department of Quantitative Health Sciences (previously the Division of Biomedical Statistics and Informatics, Department of Health Sciences Research), Mayo Clinic, 2005-present