Osnat Penn ( he, אסנת פן), born in 1981,
is an Israeli
computational biologist
Computational biology refers to the use of data analysis, mathematical modeling and computational simulations to understand biological systems and relationships. An intersection of computer science, biology, and big data, the field also has fo ...
whose work focuses on molecular evolution, cell research, and immunoinformatics.
She is the third
Israeli scientist in three years to win the
UNESCO-L’Oréal fellowship, which she received in 2013 for her work on the
genetic origins of
autism
The autism spectrum, often referred to as just autism or in the context of a professional diagnosis autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or autism spectrum condition (ASC), is a neurodevelopmental condition (or conditions) characterized by difficulti ...
. Penn is currently a postdoctorate fellow at the
University of Washington in
Seattle, where she has been working since 2012.
Penn holds three degrees from
Tel-Aviv University in Israel. She completed a Bachelor of Science in Biology and Computer Science, specializing in
bioinformatics
Bioinformatics () is an interdisciplinary field that develops methods and software tools for understanding biological data, in particular when the data sets are large and complex. As an interdisciplinary field of science, bioinformatics combi ...
.
She also completed a Master's degree in
Molecular biology and a Ph.D in
Computational Biology
Computational biology refers to the use of data analysis, mathematical modeling and computational simulations to understand biological systems and relationships. An intersection of computer science, biology, and big data, the field also has fo ...
, both with the department of cell research and immunology. Her Ph.D thesis was titled "Computational methods for sequence analysis of HIV evolutionary dynamics," and was supervised by Tel-Aviv professor Tal Pupko.
Penn has previously worked at Tel-Aviv university as a teaching assistant for the course Introduction to Bioinformatics between 2006 and 2009. She also taught several bioinformatics and biological sequence analysis courses at Tel-Aviv between 2007 and 2011.
Penn has been responsible for several different
computer programs developed at
Tel Aviv University in order to aid in biological research.
She developed GUIDANCE, a
web server
A web server is computer software and underlying hardware that accepts requests via HTTP (the network protocol created to distribute web content) or its secure variant HTTPS. A user agent, commonly a web browser or web crawler, initiate ...
used for estimating alignment confidence scores, with the support of the Converging Technologies Program.
RASER, the RAte Shift EstimatoR, is used to test site-specific
evolutionary rate shifts and identify the specific sites and lineages in which the shifts likely occur. The Pepitope Server is used to map
epitopes using affinity-selected
peptides.
Her work with autism genetic sequencing, which won her the
UNESCO-L’Oréal award and a grant of $40,000 to further her studies,
worked to identify genetic variations in
autistic children that differed from genome sequences in
allistic
Neurodiversity refers to diversity in the human brain and cognition, for instance in sociability, learning, attention, mood and other mental functions.
It was coined in 1998 by sociologist Judy Singer, who helped popularize the concept alon ...
parents.
It contributed to research on the genetic complexity of autism, especially in instances where there is no family history of the condition (sporadic autism). Her work may lead to
prenatal screening and early diagnosis of autism, as well as the development of
gene therapy as an interventional treatment.
Penn has been published in ''
Cell'',
''
Genome Research'', ''
Molecular Biology and Evolution'', ''
Nucleic Acids Research'',
''
Systematic Biology'', ''
BMC Evolutionary Biology'', ''
PLoS Computational Biology
''PLOS Computational Biology'' is a monthly peer-reviewed open access scientific journal covering computational biology. It was established in 2005 by the Public Library of Science in association with the International Society for Computational B ...
'', ''
Bioinformatics
Bioinformatics () is an interdisciplinary field that develops methods and software tools for understanding biological data, in particular when the data sets are large and complex. As an interdisciplinary field of science, bioinformatics combi ...
'', ''
Proteins
Proteins are large biomolecules and macromolecules that comprise one or more long chains of amino acid residues. Proteins perform a vast array of functions within organisms, including catalysing metabolic reactions, DNA replication, respo ...
,'' ''
Genome Medicine,'' ''
Nature,'' ''
Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences,'' ''
Nature Ecology and Evolution,'' ''
Genome Biology,'' ''
American Journal of Human Genetics'' and ''
Protein Engineering, Design and Selection''.
References
External links
Official site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Penn, Osnat
Israeli women scientists
L'Oréal-UNESCO Awards for Women in Science fellows
Israeli biologists
21st-century women scientists
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people