Russ Biagio Altman, M.D., Ph.D., is the Kenneth Fong Professor of Bioengineering, Genetics, Medicine, Biomedical Data Science and (by courtesy) Computer Science and past chair of the Bioengineering Department at Stanford University. His primary research interests are in the application of computing (artificial intelligence [AI], data science, and informatics) to problems relevant to medicine. Dr. Altman is particularly interested in methods for understanding drug action at the molecular, cellular, organism, and population levels. His lab studies how human genetic variation affects drug response. He also analyzes biological molecules to understand drugs’ actions, interactions, and adverse events. Dr. Altman helps lead a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)–supported Center of Excellence in Regulatory Science and Innovation.
Dr. Altman holds an A.B. from Harvard College, an M.D. from Stanford Medical School, and a Ph.D. in medical information sciences from Stanford University. He received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers and a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program award. He is a fellow of the American College of Physicians (ACP), the American College of Medical Informatics (ACMI), the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of Medicine [IOM]). He is a past president, founding board member, and fellow of the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) and a past president of the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (ASCPT). He has chaired the science board advising the FDA commissioner, served on the NIH Director’s Advisory Committee, and co-chaired the IOM Drug Forum. He is an organizer of the annual Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing and a founder of Personalis.
Dr. Altman is board certified in internal medicine and clinical informatics. He received Stanford Medical School graduate teaching awards in 2000 and 2020 and a Stanford mentorship award in 2014. He is the founding editor of the Annual Review of Biomedical Data Science and hosts a SiriusXM radio show and podcast entitled “The Future of Everything.”
