Full Name
Melanie Courtot (Session Chair)
Job title
Director Genome Informatics and Assistant Professor
Affiliation
OICR and University of Toronto
Speaker bio
Dr Mélanie Courtot is Senior Director of Genome Informatics and a Principal Investigator at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR) in Toronto, Assistant Professor in the Department of Medical Biophysics and Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto.
She is passionate about translational informatics - building intelligent systems that turn complex data into insight and impact for human health. Her 25-person team develops the Overture software suite, which has helped manage roughly 3 million genomes (2.5 petabytes of data) accessed by over 300,000 researchers worldwide. Overture underpins major international genomics initiatives, including ICGC-ARGO (molecular and clinical data for 100,000+ cancer patients globally), iMicroSeq (Canada's national portal for microbial and viral sequence data, building on the legacy of the VirusSeq COVID-19 portal), and the upcoming pan-Canadian Genome Library.
After a Master's in Computer Science (Université Louis Pasteur, France, 2002), she worked as a software engineer and database administrator across France, the UK, Greece and Canada before earning her PhD in Bioinformatics from the University of British Columbia (2014) and completing a postdoctoral fellowship in Public Health. She serves on the GA4GH Strategic Leadership Committee, as a Research Council member for the Digital Research Alliance of Canada, and on the advisory board of the European Viral Outbreak Response Alliance (EVORA).
She is passionate about translational informatics - building intelligent systems that turn complex data into insight and impact for human health. Her 25-person team develops the Overture software suite, which has helped manage roughly 3 million genomes (2.5 petabytes of data) accessed by over 300,000 researchers worldwide. Overture underpins major international genomics initiatives, including ICGC-ARGO (molecular and clinical data for 100,000+ cancer patients globally), iMicroSeq (Canada's national portal for microbial and viral sequence data, building on the legacy of the VirusSeq COVID-19 portal), and the upcoming pan-Canadian Genome Library.
After a Master's in Computer Science (Université Louis Pasteur, France, 2002), she worked as a software engineer and database administrator across France, the UK, Greece and Canada before earning her PhD in Bioinformatics from the University of British Columbia (2014) and completing a postdoctoral fellowship in Public Health. She serves on the GA4GH Strategic Leadership Committee, as a Research Council member for the Digital Research Alliance of Canada, and on the advisory board of the European Viral Outbreak Response Alliance (EVORA).
Speaking At
