Magazine ranks Bradley, Delaney among world's top young investigators

Dr. Philip Bradley and Colleen Delaney are among 31 scientists identified in Genome Technology magazine for making an impact early in their careers. The magazine's second annual young investigators special issue gives readers a chance to see large-scale biomedical research through the eyes of some of the best and brightest people around the world who are poised to make serious contributions to their areas of interest.

The 31 up-and-coming young scientists are focused on leading-edge disciplines within molecular biology, including genome sequencing, RNA interference, stem cells, synthetic biology, microarrays and computational biology.

Delaney, of the Clinical Research Division and the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, focuses on improving on blood stem-cell transplantation. She has developed novel methods for expanding the concentration of stem cells in cord blood to increase the likelihood of a successful transplant — an alternative of particular interest to patients of color or mixed ethnicity who cannot identify a suitable adult donor. Delaney was an integral part of the first team that successfully transplanted expanded stem cells into a patient and coaxed them to regenerate and repopulate the patient's blood system.

A mathematician who works on protein-modeling software, Bradley works in the Computational Biology Program in the Public Health Division and as assistant professor in computational biology at the University of Washington. As a postdoc in Dr. David Baker's lab at the UW, Bradley helped develop the Rosetta software, a modeling tool used to predict and design protein three-dimensional structures, as well as protein-protein and protein-ligand interactions. Since joining the Hutchinson Center in July, Bradley has primarily focused on discovering how proteins interact with other molecules. "We're really interested in the question, can you model that interaction between the protein and the DNA in such a way that you can figure out which sites that protein is going to want to bind to," he said.

Genome Technology's rising young investigators received nominations by a select group of scientists including Dr. Francis Collins of the National Human Genome Research Institute; Nobel laureate Dr. Lee Hartwell, Center president and director; Dr. George Church of Harvard Medical School; and Dr. Jill Mesirov of the Broad Institute.

Now in its eighth year of publication, Genome Technology serves the worldwide community of scientists working in genomics, proteomics, bioinformatics and other leading-edge molecular biology disciplines. To access the magazine for more information and the complete list of honorees (free subscriptions are available for researchers), visit www.genomeweb.com.