To contact me, please send E-mail to:
Al (al@afs4dna.com)
Current telephone contact via: 919-323-7585
Remember Al when you need a bioinformatics consultant.
Computational Biology Consulting Services
I am actively seeking engagements beginning January, 2012. My consultations are about solving your problems and advancing your science, using creativity, drive, and broad experiences. What services do you need to energize your scientific discovery efforts? Call me now!
I have provided a broad range of services to my clients, based on strong understandings of technical concepts and issues.
I have conceived and developed stand-alone programs and pipelines, developed and offered exceptional training programs and
offered strategic advice to start-ups that pointed them in valuable and
successful directions. I
have taken slow codes and optimized them for specialized hardware,
and developed friendly interfaces for ugly programs (MasPar's vintage
version of MPSRCH, vowels sold separately, is the ultimate justification for this assertion).
I have advised companies and individuals on technology acquisitions and intellectual property concerns, and spent
considerable time with start-up companies in their initial assessment
and strategy sessions.
I am especially interested in working with current applications in areas such as the processing and analysis of current-technology genetic sequencing in applications such as RNAseq and CHIPseq, with which I've been consulting as part of my activities at Rockefeller University's CCTS. I'm also interested in problems that are characterized as data mining within the now data-rich fields of genomics and biology.
My central theme has been to provide bioinformatics consultant services that make a difference in the scientific life of my client companies. Some of my core activities have revolved around the process of insuring that the owners of new technology are able to accomplish the scientific tasks for which they purchased new hardware and/or software.
My work is consulting in the truest sense--> I have helped to ensure success at a diverse collection of goals and needs! My actual work varied with my client's needs, but has certainly included design and implementation of custom applications, optimization/speed-up of programs, design and delivery of excellent technical training and education, systems integrations, as well as timely, cogent, and relevant strategic advice and direct support for technical marketing and sales efforts.
My practice spans much of the breadth of a new discipline. Computational biology is a very rapidly developing field, evolving from its origins in bioinformatics, computer science, mathematics, molecular biology and other traditional and non-traditional disciplines.
Any consultant must be a mix of many skills, sometimes playing the statesman , and sometimes playing the magician , but always being flexible and focused on meeting the client's real needs. Call now to see how I can help to energize your discovery effort!
Some notable community activities
CSB, an annual bioinformatics conference that was held at Stanford University (and once at UCSD), was an activity that I directly supported, as a member of the organizing committee, local arrangements coordinator, and, in 2006-7, as chair of the Tutorial Committee.
From 2001 through 2006, I enjoyed teaching classes in bioinformatics data analysis, and modelling, as a part-time instructor, in the award-winning certificate program offered by the University of California at Santa Cruz extension program in Silicon Valley and also at the University of California Berkeley's Extension program. I welcome training and teaching opportunities.
Some Posters and Talks to break out of my more customary non-disclosure mode which regrettably prevents discussion of most of my projects:
50th Maize Genetics Conference: Research poster: "Syngenta's Maize Allelic Diversity Platform", Sonali Gandhi et. al.
Pacific Biocomputing Symposium 1999 Research Poster described work on EST clustering using Smith-Waterman analysis on the TimeLogic DeCypher accelerator.
ISMB 1999 Research Poster described a nucleic-sequence data mining tool for processing/browsing frameshift Smith-Waterman outputs beginning from protein motifs and fragments, which was developed with Keith Joho for use at Roche Bioscience. The same facility was later used in an interesting micro-array probe-design application.
ISMB 2000 TimeLogic's poster titled "Analytical Methods for Genome to Genome Comparisons". (joint author; Principal author Marty Gollery, is once again working directly at Time Logic, now a branch of Active Motif).
September, 2001 talk at Bay Area Bioinformatics group, "What have they done to my BLAST?"
While most of my clients are kept in confidence, and covered by formal non-disclosure requirements, several of my associations are reasonably well known, and happily advertised. For now, let us spotlight my longest-running client, TimeLogic , with whom I worked for over six years, prior to their move to Carlsbad, and also to briefly lament the trends that have swallowed up such favorite former Bay Area clients as Systemix (folded into Novartis), Abgenix (now a part of Amgen) and Sugen (which became part of Pharmacia/Upjohn before disappearing into Pfizer).
Books For Sale
Book from personal, family and select sources now available through
Amazon Marketplace and also from
Biblio.com.
Web 2.0 Network presences: I am on LinkedIn! After a bit of consideration, I am currently not participating in organized boredom (Twitter), the bioinformatics blogosphere (if you want to know what I think about current issues, please write or call!), or marketing scams masquerading as contact networks (plaxo, xing, adult-friend-finder, ...). Write to me and tell me why I am wrong! ("You still can hear me singing to the people that don't listen to the things that I am saying praying someone's gonna hear...")
al@afs4dna.com
Have Bioinformatics (and more), Will Travel.
Compute Fast and Prosper!
Remember, to contact me for any reason, please send E-mail to:
al@afs4dna.com
Remember to call Al when you would benefit from consulting assistance in HPC, computational biology, any sort of parallel computing, including
SIMD, FPGA-assisted or general bioinformatics.
You may retrieve some of my personal background information by clicking on the following selections:
