ORLY ALTER portrait
  • USTAR Associate Professor of Bioengineering and Human Genetics, Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute and Huntsman Cancer Institute, University of Utah
  • CSO and Co-Founder, Prism AI Therapeutics, Inc.

Current Courses

Spring 2025

  • BME 677-001
    Genomic Sig Processing
  • BME 6770-001
    Genomic Sig Processing
  • BME 7880-002
    TA Mentorship
  • CS 4970-056
    CS Bachelor's Thesis

Fall 2024

Entrepreneurial Experience

  • Prism AI Therapeutics, Inc. 01/2024 - present. Employees: 6.
    Comments: Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) and Co-Founder

People




Senior Industrial Research Affiliate and Ph.D. Alumna

Sri Priya Ponnapalli Electrical and Computer Engineering Senior Director, Machine Learning, Google LLC (Palo Alto, CA)

Interview: T. Gallagher, "The Future of Sports: Dr. Priya Ponnapalli of Amazon Web Services (AWS) on the New Emerging Technologies That are Disrupting the World of Sports," Authority Magazine (September 10, 2021).
Highlight: C. Garcia, "From Genomic Signal Processing to Portfolio and Risk Analytics," Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute Alumni Highlights (February 6, 2013).

K99 Postdoctoral Alumnus

Jason M. Tennessen Human Genetics Associate Professor, Biology, Indiana University (Bloomington, IN)

Ph.D. Alumni

Larsson Omberg Physics Executive Vice President, Data Science, Koneksa (Seattle, WA)
Kayta Kobayashi Pharmacy Clinical Integrated Pharmacist, Memorial Hermann Health System (Houston, TX)
Chaitanya Muralidhara Cellular and Molecular Biology Vice President and Director, Oncology Affairs, Lockwood (Boston, MA)

B.Sc. Alumni

Joel R. Meyerson
 
Biomedical Engineering and
Government
Software Engineer, Ginkgo Bioworks, and
Adjunct Professor, Weill Cornell Medical College (New York, NY)
Andrew M. Gross
 
Biomedical Engineering and
Statistical and Scientific Computing
Bioinformatics Scientist, Guardant Health (Cincinnati, OH)
 
Justin A. Drake
 
Biomedical Engineering and
Statistical and Scientific Computing
Assistant Professor, Department of Women's Health, Dell Medical School, and
Research Associate, Texas Advanced Computing Center (Austin, TX)
Nicolas M. Bertagnolli Mathematics and Bioengineering Principal Machine Learning Engineer, BENlabs (Salt Lake City, UT)

 

Small Group Teaching

  • Organizing and hosting Rachel Karchin, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Oncology, and Computer Science at Johns Hopkins University, “Predicting Immunogenic Neoepitopes in Cancers,” Bioengineering Elevated Lecture of the Department of Bioengineering, University of Utah (March 15, 2024).  03/2023  -  03/2024
  • Organized and hosted Michael R. King, J. Lawrence Wilson Professor and Department Chair of Biomedical Engineering at Vanderbilt University, “The Shear Force is All Around Us: Mechanotransduction of Cancer and Immune Cells in Fluid Flow,” Bioengineering Elevated Lecture of the Department of Bioengineering, University of Utah (April 21, 2023); https://twitter.com/OrlyAlter/status/1648845225643876352.  04/2023  -  04/2023
  • Organized and hosted Daniel L. Ruderman, Director of Digital Pathology for Oncology Biomarker Discovery at Genentech, “Meshing Quantitative Skills with Biological Curiosity: Biomedicine's New Era,” Bioengineering Elevated Lecture of the Department of Bioengineering, University of Utah (April 23, 2021); https://twitter.com/OrlyAlter/status/1385996646949994509.  04/2021  -  04/2021
  • Organized and hosted Linda M. Liau, Professor and W. Eugene Stern Chair of the Department of Neurosurgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), “Overcoming Immunotherapy Resistance in Glioblastoma,” Bioengineering Elevated Lecture of the Department of Bioengineering, University of Utah (April 9, 2021); https://twitter.com/OrlyAlter/status/1378981595504316417.  04/2021  -  04/2021
  • Organized and hosted Rafael Palacios with Kim Palacios-Flores, Honorary Professor and Coordinator at the International Laboratory for Human Genome Research at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (LIIGH-UNAM), with Postdoctoral Researcher at the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research, “Perfect Match Genomic Landscape,” Bioengineering Elevated Lecture of the Department of Bioengineering, University of Utah (April 2, 2021); https://twitter.com/OrlyAlter/status/1374918347779805186.  04/2021  -  04/2021
  • Organized and hosted Dennis E. Discher, Robert D. Bent chaired Professor and Director of NCI-Physical Sciences Oncology Center at the University of Pennsylvania, “Convergent Science Approaches to Solid Tumors: From Mechano-Genetic Variation to a Macrophage Checkpoint,” Bioengineering Elevated Lecture of the Department of Bioengineering, University of Utah (October 30, 2020); https://twitter.com/OrlyAlter/status/1319329856673361921.  10/2020  -  10/2020
  • Organized and hosted Kristin R. Swanson, Professor and Vice Chair of Research in Neurological Surgery, Co-Director of the Precision Neurotherapeutics Innovation Program, Director of the Mathematical NeuroOncology Lab at the Mayo Clinic, and Professor of Mathematics at Arizona State University, “Sex, Drugs, and Radiomics of Brain Cancer,” Bioengineering Elevated Lecture of the Department of Bioengineering, University of Utah, University of Utah (October 9, 2020); https://twitter.com/OrlyAlter/status/1314371270222340097.  10/2020  -  10/2020
  • Organized and hosted Tom M. Mitchell, E. Fredkin University Professor of Machine Learning at Carnegie Mellon University, “Using Machine Learning to Study How Brains Represent Language Meaning,” Scientific Computing and Imaging (SCI) Institute Distinguished Seminar, University of Utah (February 16, 2018); https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oENp857ATYo.  02/2018  -  02/2018
  • Organized and hosted Cleve B. Moler, Chairman and Co-Founder of MathWorks, Inc., “The Evolution of MATLAB,” Scientific Computing and Imaging (SCI) Institute Distinguished Seminar, University of Utah (September 22, 2017); https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QZDLUwBXro.  09/2017  -  09/2017
  • Organized and hosted Joel S. Bader, Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University (JHU), “Quantitative Image-Based Phenotypes for Cancer Metastasis Systems Biology,” Department of Bioengineering Distinguished Seminar, University of Utah (March 27, 2017).  03/2017  -  03/2017
  • Organized and hosted Andre Levchenko, John C. Malone Professor of Bioengineering at Yale University, “Uniting Genetics, Signal Transduction, and Material Science in the Analysis of Cancer Invasion,” Department of Bioengineering Distinguished Seminar, University of Utah (March 4, 2016).  03/2016  -  03/2016
  • Organized and hosted Peter J. Bickel, Professor of Statistics at the University of California at Berkeley, “The ENCODE Project and Us,” Scientific Computing and Imaging (SCI) Institute Distinguished Seminar, University of Utah (April 3, 2015); https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JI6dD-5GkI.  04/2015  -  04/2015
  • Organized and hosted Prabhakar Raghavan, Vice President of Strategic Technologies at Google, “Why Computer Scientists Need to Understand Consumer Behavior,” Scientific Computing and Imaging (SCI) Institute Distinguished Seminar, University of Utah (March 28, 2014); https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eh-yfFcG8rs.  03/2014  -  03/2014
  • Organized and hosted Matthew P. Scott, Howard H. and Jessie T. Watkins University Professor and Professor of Developmental Biology, Genetics, Bioengineering and, by courtesy, Biology at Stanford University, “Communicating with Hedgehogs: Transduction and Gene Regulation,” Scientific Computing and Imaging (SCI) Institute Distinguished Seminar, University of Utah (October 4, 2013); https://alterlab.org/announcements/Scott_2013_Seminar.pdf.  10/2013  -  10/2013
  • Organized and hosted James E. Ferrell, Jr., Professor and Chair of Chemical and Systems Biology and Professor of Biochemistry at Stanford University, “Bistability and Trigger Waves in Mitosis,” Scientific Computing and Imaging (SCI) Institute Distinguished Seminar, University of Utah (March 8, 2013); https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z36AwoLh_ic.  03/2013  -  03/2013
  • Organized and hosted Charles F. Van Loan, Ford Professor of Engineering at the Department of Computer Science at Cornell University, “Block Tensor Computations,” Scientific Computing and Imaging (SCI) Institute Distinguished Seminar, University of Utah (April 8, 2011); https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGN3zmK3lsU.  04/2011  -  04/2011
  • Organized and hosted Sir Richard J. Roberts, 1993 Nobel Laureate in Physiology and Medicine and Chief Scientific Officer of New England Biolabs, “COMBREX – Genomes, Computers and Experimentation in Biology,” Scientific Computing and Imaging (SCI) Institute Distinguished Seminar, University of Utah (April 13, 2011); https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GU7m4oNalsM.  04/2011  -  04/2011
  • Organized and hosted “SXSVD (South by SVD): Gene H. Golub’s World Day Celebration in Austin,” Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences (ICES) Special Symposium, University of Texas at Austin (February 29, 2008); https://alterlab.org/announcements/Alter_SXSVD_2008_Symposium.pdf.  02/2008  -  02/2008
  • Organized and hosted Christopher R. Johnson, Director of the Scientific Computing and Imaging (SCI) Institute, Co-Director of the NIH Center for Integrative Biomedical Computing (CIBC), Distinguished Professor of Computer Science, Research Professor of Bioengineering, and Adjunct Professor of Physics at the University of Utah, and Co-Founder of Visual Influence Inc., and Co-Editor of the Visualization Handbook, “Computing and Visualizing the Future of Biomedicine,” Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) Distinguished Seminar, University of Texas at Austin (January 22, 2008); https://alterlab.org/announcements/Johnson_2008_Seminar.pdf.  01/2008  -  01/2008
  • Organized and hosted John F. X. Diffley, Deputy Director of the London Institute and Director of the Clare Hall Laboratories of Cancer Research UK, “Regulation of DNA Replication by Cyclin Dependent Kinases,” Institute for Cellular and Molecular Biology (ICMB) Special Seminar, University of Texas at Austin (November 5–7, 2006).  11/2006  -  11/2006
  • Organized and hosted Steven Chu, Director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Geballe Professor of Physics and Applied Physics at Stanford University, and 1997 Nobel Laureate in Physics, “Single Molecule Studies of Complex Systems In Vitro and In Vivo,” Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) Distinguished Seminar, University of Texas at Austin (November 1–2, 2006); https://alterlab.org/announcements/Chu_2006_Seminar.pdf.  11/2006  -  11/2006