Dr. Daniel Hughes, M2Gen’s former Director of Cancer Knowledge Base and Pharma Services, has joined Premier Medical Laboratory Services (PMLS) as the Director of Bioinformatics. After spending more than 10 years in Bioinformatics, Dr. Hughes will be leading PMLS in scientific development for human diseases, risk scores, and COVID-19 variant identification.
“We are completely honored to have Daniel join the team,” said Kevin Murdock, CEO of Premier Medical Laboratory Services. “His experience and knowledge of the field is extremely valuable in propelling us forward to fulfill our capabilities as a laboratory. He is a powerful addition to Premier, aiding in our mission to continually improve patient care with the latest in science and innovation.”
After completing his undergraduate studies at the University of Oxford, Dr. Hughes studied for a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology and Genomics at the University of Cambridge and Welcome Trust Sanger Institute. Dr. Hughes then spent time in Brazil, where he developed an interest in infectious diseases. He went on to work on the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) VectorBase project and Ensembl genome project at the European Bioinformatics Institute where he worked on numerous emerging genome projects. Subsequently, Dr. Hughes spent several years at the Human Genome Sequencing Center at Baylor College of Medicine as a Lead Scientific Programmer & Analyst working extensively on the application of High-Performance Compute for Genome Assembly, Variant Calling, Annotation, and Cancer Genomics.
He then moved to Columbia University’s Medical School to build their infrastructure for the analysis of the Genetics of Complex Human Diseases where he was promoted to Director of Genome Informatics and Software Engineering. Dr. Hughes proceeded into cancer research at M2Gen where he was the Director of Cancer Knowledge Base and Pharma Services. Now, he joins Premier Medical Laboratory Services as the Director of Bioinformatics.
“Working with the Premier Medical team has been great,” said Dr. Hughes, “It’s a dynamic environment that’s eager to bring in new challenges and meet the medical needs of the next generation.” Dr. Hughes also addressed Premier Medical’s growth in genome sequencing, “PMLS is adapting so quickly with all the state-of-the-art equipment. To think years ago, the first human genome took 10 years and cost millions. Now, with the machines Premier has, we can run 50 or 60 in a day or two and collect a large amount of data that can help us in our research.”
Learn more about Dr. Hughes’ position and goals for PMLS in the video below.