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Vesteinn Thorsson

Vésteinn Thorsson, PhD

Principal Scientist

Thorsson-Shmulevich Lab

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  • Research Interests
  • Education
  • Expertise
  • Publications

Dr. Thorsson aims to apply computational methods toward improving human health. His research encompasses mathematical modeling, gene regulatory networks, bioinformatics and data integration, cancer genomics and immunooncology. Dr. Thorsson has worked on systems modeling of gene regulatory networks in yeast and halobacterium, and on molecular networks responsible for the activation of murine macrophages. As part of the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) Research Network, Dr. Thorsson played a key leadership and analysis role in all TCGA studies of gastrointestinal (GI) tumors – colorectal, gastric, and esophageal cancer, including in determining the molecular subtypes in GI cancer. Dr. Thorsson also served as a co-chair of a working group dedicated to comprehensive analysis of immune response in the more than 10,000 TCGA tumor samples, which culminated in the publication of the study “The Immune Landscape of Cancer”. Dr. Thorsson plays a lead role in the iAtlas portal for immunoncology, in the data coordinating center of the NCI Human Tumor Atlas Network, and on a project developing digital twins for acute myeloid leukemia.

PhD, Physics, Stony Brook University, 1992

Computational Biology, Immunooncology
Mo, Chia-Kuei, Jingxian Liu, Siqi Chen, Erik Storrs, Andre Luiz N. Targino da Costa, Andrew Houston, Michael C. Wendl, et al. 2024. “Tumour Evolution and Microenvironment Interactions in 2D and 3D Space.” Nature 634 (8036): 1178–86. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08087-4. Cite Download
Thorsson, Vésteinn, Carolina Heimann, Andrew Lamb, David Gibbs, Dante Bortone, Sarah Dexheimer, Steven Vensko, et al. 2022. “927 Streamlining Cancer Immunotherapy Research with the CRI IAtlas Data Resource and Web Portal.” Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer 10 (Suppl 2). https://doi.org/10.1136/jitc-2022-SITC2022.0927. Cite Download
Sayaman, Rosalyn W., Mohamad Saad, Carolina Heimann, Donglei Hu, Khalid Kunji, Jessica Roelands, Denise M. Wolf, et al. 2022. “Analytic Pipelines to Assess the Relationship between Immune Response and Germline Genetics in Human Tumors.” STAR Protocols 3 (4): 101809. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xpro.2022.101809. Cite Download
Bortone, Dante, Anne Monette, Nicholas Tschernia, Alexandria Cogdill, Yana Najjar, Randy F. Sweis, Sara Valpione, et al. 2022. “508 Generalizability of Predictive versus Prognostic Indicators from Published Transcriptomic Associations with Tumor Response to Immune Checkpoint Inhibition.” Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer 10 (Suppl 2). https://doi.org/10.1136/jitc-2022-SITC2022.0508. Cite Download
Mok, Lydia, Andrea Orlando, Julian Lehrer, Joshua Stuart, Nils-Petter Rudqvist, Benjamin Vincent, Anne Monette, et al. 2022. “9 A Pan-Cancer Multi-Omic Immune Single-Cell Atlas for Cancer Immunotherapy: Focus on CD4+ T Cells.” Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer 10 (Suppl 2). https://doi.org/10.1136/jitc-2022-SITC2022.0009. Cite Download
Taylor, Adam J., Milen Nikolov, Ino de Brujin, Jeremy Muhlich, Mialy De Felice, Artem Sokolov, Denis Schapiro, et al. 2022. “Abstract 2131: Curating Cartography: Enabling the Harmonisation, Visualisation, and Reuse of Diverse Multiplexed Imaging Data through the Human Tumor Atlas Network Data Coordinating Center.” Cancer Research 82 (12_Supplement): 2131. https://doi.org/10.1158/1538-7445.AM2022-2131. Cite
Middha, Pooja, Rosalyn W. Sayaman, Mohamad Saad, Vesteinn Thorsson, Davide Bedognetti, and Elad Ziv. 2022. “Multi-Tissue Transcriptome-Wide Association Study Identifies 12 Novel Candidate Genes Associated with the Immune Traits in Cancer.” In GENETIC EPIDEMIOLOGY, 46:518–518. WILEY 111 RIVER ST, HOBOKEN 07030-5774, NJ USA. Cite
Sherif, Shimaa, Jessica Roelands, William Mifsud, Eiman I. Ahmed, Christophe M. Raynaud, Darawan Rinchai, Abbirami Sathappan, et al. 2022. “The Immune Landscape of Solid Pediatric Tumors.” Journal of Experimental & Clinical Cancer Research: CR 41 (1): 199. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13046-022-02397-z. Cite
Schapiro, Denis, Clarence Yapp, Artem Sokolov, Sheila M. Reynolds, Yu-An Chen, Damir Sudar, Yubin Xie, et al. 2022. “MITI Minimum Information Guidelines for Highly Multiplexed Tissue Images.” Nature Methods 19 (3): 262–67. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-022-01415-4. Cite Download
Gibbs, David L., Boris Aguilar, Vésteinn Thorsson, Alexander V. Ratushny, and Ilya Shmulevich. 2021. “Patient-Specific Cell Communication Networks Associate With Disease Progression in Cancer.” Frontiers in Genetics 12:667382. https://doi.org/10.3389/fgene.2021.667382. Cite Download
Sayaman, Rosalyn W., Mohamad Saad, Vésteinn Thorsson, Donglei Hu, Wouter Hendrickx, Jessica Roelands, Eduard Porta-Pardo, et al. 2021. “Germline Genetic Contribution to the Immune Landscape of Cancer.” Immunity 54 (2): 367-386.e8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.immuni.2021.01.011. Cite Download
Eddy, James A., Vésteinn Thorsson, Andrew E. Lamb, David L. Gibbs, Carolina Heimann, Jia Xin Yu, Verena Chung, et al. 2020. “CRI IAtlas: An Interactive Portal for Immuno-Oncology Research.” F1000Research 9:1028. https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.25141.1. Cite Download
Cesano, Alessandra, Michael A. Cannarile, Sacha Gnjatic, Bruno Gomes, Justin Guinney, Vaios Karanikas, Mohan Karkada, et al. 2020. “Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer Clinical and Biomarkers Data Sharing Resource Document: Volume II-Practical Challenges.” Journal for Immunotherapy of Cancer 8 (2). https://doi.org/10.1136/jitc-2020-001472. Cite Download
Rutella, Sergio, Michael A. Cannarile, Sacha Gnjatic, Bruno Gomes, Justin Guinney, Vaios Karanikas, Mohan Karkada, et al. 2020. “Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer Clinical and Biomarkers Data Sharing Resource Document: Volume I-Conceptual Challenges.” Journal for Immunotherapy of Cancer 8 (2). https://doi.org/10.1136/jitc-2020-001389. Cite Download
Derks, S., L. K. de Klerk, X. Xu, T. Fleitas, K. X. Liu, Y. Liu, F. Dietlein, et al. 2020. “Characterizing Diversity in the Tumor-Immune Microenvironment of Distinct Subclasses of Gastroesophageal Adenocarcinomas.” Annals of Oncology: Official Journal of the European Society for Medical Oncology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annonc.2020.04.011. Cite
Thorsson, Vésteinn. 2020. “Multiplatform Integrative Analysis of Immunogenomic Data for Biomarker Discovery.” Methods in Molecular Biology (Clifton, N.J.) 2055:679–98. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-9773-2_30. Cite
Thorsson, Vésteinn. 2019. “Multiplatform Integrative Analysis of Immunogenomic Data for Biomarker Discovery.” Methods in Molecular Biology (Clifton, N.J.) 2055:679–98. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-9773-2_30. Cite
Möller, Katrin, Sara Sigurbjornsdottir, Asgeir O. Arnthorsson, Vivian Pogenberg, Ramile Dilshat, Valerie Fock, Solveig H. Brynjolfsdottir, et al. 2019. “MITF Has a Central Role in Regulating Starvation-Induced Autophagy in Melanoma.” Scientific Reports 9 (1): 1055. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-37522-6. Cite
Hoadley, Katherine A., Christina Yau, Toshinori Hinoue, Denise M. Wolf, Alexander J. Lazar, Esther Drill, Ronglai Shen, et al. 2018. “Cell-of-Origin Patterns Dominate the Molecular Classification of 10,000 Tumors from 33 Types of Cancer.” Cell 173 (2): 291-304.e6. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2018.03.022. Cite Download
Liu, Jianfang, Tara Lichtenberg, Katherine A. Hoadley, Laila M. Poisson, Alexander J. Lazar, Andrew D. Cherniack, Albert J. Kovatich, et al. 2018. “An Integrated TCGA Pan-Cancer Clinical Data Resource to Drive High-Quality Survival Outcome Analytics.” Cell 173 (2): 400-416.e11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2018.02.052. Cite Download
Thorsson, Vésteinn, David L. Gibbs, Scott D. Brown, Denise Wolf, Dante S. Bortone, Tai-Hsien Ou Yang, Eduard Porta-Pardo, et al. 2018. “The Immune Landscape of Cancer.” Immunity 48 (4): 812-830.e14. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.immuni.2018.03.023. Cite Download
Hmeljak, Julija, Francisco Sanchez-Vega, Katherine A. Hoadley, Juliann Shih, Chip Stewart, David Heiman, Patrick Tarpey, et al. 2018. “Integrative Molecular Characterization of Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma.” Cancer Discovery. https://doi.org/10.1158/2159-8290.CD-18-0804. Cite
Shen, Hui, Juliann Shih, Daniel P. Hollern, Linghua Wang, Reanne Bowlby, Satish K. Tickoo, Vésteinn Thorsson, et al. 2018. “Integrated Molecular Characterization of Testicular Germ Cell Tumors.” Cell Reports 23 (11): 3392–3406. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2018.05.039. Cite Download
Saltz, Joel, Rajarsi Gupta, Le Hou, Tahsin Kurc, Pankaj Singh, Vu Nguyen, Dimitris Samaras, et al. 2018. “Spatial Organization and Molecular Correlation of Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocytes Using Deep Learning on Pathology Images.” Cell Reports 23 (1): 181-193.e7. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2018.03.086. Cite Download
Liu, Yang, Nilay S. Sethi, Toshinori Hinoue, Barbara G. Schneider, Andrew D. Cherniack, Francisco Sanchez-Vega, Jose A. Seoane, et al. 2018. “Comparative Molecular Analysis of Gastrointestinal Adenocarcinomas.” Cancer Cell 33 (4): 721-735.e8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ccell.2018.03.010. Cite
Ding, Li, Matthew H. Bailey, Eduard Porta-Pardo, Vesteinn Thorsson, Antonio Colaprico, Denis Bertrand, David L. Gibbs, et al. 2018. “Perspective on Oncogenic Processes at the End of the Beginning of Cancer Genomics.” Cell 173 (2): 305-320.e10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2018.03.033. Cite
Wang, Zhaoming, Katherine A. McGlynn, Ewa Rajpert-De Meyts, D. Timothy Bishop, Charles C. Chung, Marlene D. Dalgaard, Mark H. Greene, et al. 2017. “Meta-Analysis of Five Genome-Wide Association Studies Identifies Multiple New Loci Associated with Testicular Germ Cell Tumor.” Nature Genetics 49 (7): 1141–47. https://doi.org/10.1038/ng.3879. Cite
Kytola, Ville, Umit Topaloglu, Lance D. Miller, Rhonda L. Bitting, Michael M. Goodman, Ralph B. D Agostino, Rodwige J. Desnoyers, et al. 2017. “Mutational Landscapes of Smoking-Related Cancers in Caucasians and African Americans: Precision Oncology Perspectives at Wake Forest Baptist Comprehensive Cancer Center.” Theranostics 7 (11): 2914–23. https://doi.org/10.7150/thno.20355. Cite
Camargo, M. Constanza, Reanne Bowlby, Andy Chu, Chandra Sekhar Pedamallu, Vesteinn Thorsson, Sandra Elmore, Andrew J. Mungall, Adam J. Bass, Margaret L. Gulley, and Charles S. Rabkin. 2016. “Validation and Calibration of Next-Generation Sequencing to Identify Epstein-Barr Virus-Positive Gastric Cancer in The Cancer Genome Atlas.” Gastric Cancer: Official Journal of the International Gastric Cancer Association and the Japanese Gastric Cancer Association 19 (2): 676–81. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10120-015-0508-x. Cite Download
Bernard, B., V. Thorsson, H. Rovira, and I. Shmulevich. 2012. “Increasing Coverage of Transcription Factor Position Weight Matrices through Domain-Level Homology.” PloS One 7 (8): e42779. Cite
Nykter, M., H. Lahdesmaki, A. Rust, V. Thorsson, and I. Shmulevich. 2009. “A Data Integration Framework for Prediction of Transcription Factor Targets.” Ann N Y Acad Sci 1158 (March):205–14. Cite
Thuong, N. T., S. J. Dunstan, T. T. Chau, V. Thorsson, C. P. Simmons, N. T. Quyen, G. E. Thwaites, et al. 2008. “Identification of Tuberculosis Susceptibility Genes with Human Macrophage Gene Expression Profiles.” PLoS Pathog 4 (12): e1000229. Cite
Ramsey, S. A., S. L. Klemm, D. E. Zak, K. A. Kennedy, V. Thorsson, B. Li, M. Gilchrist, et al. 2008. “Uncovering a Macrophage Transcriptional Program by Integrating Evidence from Motif Scanning and Expression Dynamics.” PLoS Comput Biol 4 (3): e1000021. Cite
Carter, G. W., V. Thorsson, and T. Galitski. 2008. “Integrated Network Modeling of Molecular and Genetic Interactions.” In Sourcebook of Models for Biomedical Research, 67–74. Humana Press. Cite
Korb, M., A. G. Rust, V. Thorsson, C. Battail, B. Li, D. Hwang, K. A. Kennedy, et al. 2008. “The Innate Immune Database (IIDB).” BMC Immunol 9:7. Cite
Bonneau, R., M. T. Facciotti, D. J. Reiss, A. K. Schmid, M. Pan, A. Kaur, V. Thorsson, et al. 2007. “A Predictive Model for Transcriptional Control of Physiology in a Free Living Cell.” Cell 131 (7): 1354–65. Cite
Carter, G. W., S. Prinz, C. Neou, J. P. Shelby, B. Marzolf, V. Thorsson, and T. Galitski. 2007. “Prediction of Phenotype and Gene Expression for Combinations of Mutations.” Mol Syst Biol 3:96. Cite
Gilchrist, M., V. Thorsson, B. Li, A. G. Rust, M. Korb, J. Roach, K. Kennedy, T. Hai, H. Bolouri, and A. Aderem. 2006. “Systems Biology Approaches Identify ATF3 as a Negative Regulator of Toll-like Receptor 4.” Nature 441 (7090): 173–78. Cite
Bonneau, R., D. J. Reiss, P. Shannon, M. Facciotti, L. Hood, N. S. Baliga, and V. Thorsson. 2006. “The Inferelator: An Algorithm for Learning Parsimonious Regulatory Networks from Systems-Biology Data Sets de Novo.” Genome Biol 7 (5): R36. Cite
Ramsey, S., A. Ozinsky, A. Clark, K. D. Smith, P. de Atauri, V. Thorsson, D. Orrell, and H. Bolouri. 2006. “Transcriptional Noise and Cellular Heterogeneity in Mammalian Macrophages.” Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 361 (1467): 495–506. Cite
Thorsson, V., M. Hornquist, A. F. Siegel, and L. Hood. 2005. “Reverse Engineering Galactose Regulation in Yeast through Model Selection.” Stat Appl Genet Mol Biol 4:Article28. Cite
Reiss, D. J., I. Avila-Campillo, V. Thorsson, B. Schwikowski, and T. Galitski. 2005. “Tools Enabling the Elucidation of Molecular Pathways Active in Human Disease: Application to Hepatitis C Virus Infection.” BMC Bioinformatics 6:154. Cite
Drees, B. L., V. Thorsson, G. W. Carter, A. W. Rives, M. Z. Raymond, I. Avila-Campillo, P. Shannon, and T. Galitski. 2005. “Derivation of Genetic Interaction Networks from Quantitative Phenotype Data.” Genome Biol 6 (4): R38. Cite
Tian, Q., S. B. Stepaniants, M. Mao, L. Weng, M. C. Feetham, M. J. Doyle, E. C. Yi, et al. 2004. “Integrated Genomic and Proteomic Analyses of Gene Expression in Mammalian Cells.” Mol Cell Proteomics 3 (10): 960–69. Cite
Smith, K. D., and V. Thorsson. 2004. “Exploring Toll-Like Receptor Regulation of Innate Immunity with the Tools of Systems Biology.” Current Genomics 5 (7): 545–57. Cite
Yoo, C., V. Thorsson, and G. F. Cooper. 2002. “Discovery of Causal Relationships in a Gene-Regulation Pathway from a Mixture of Experimental and Observational DNA Microarray Data.” Pac Symp Biocomput, 498–509. Cite
Ideker, T., V. Thorsson, J. Ranish, R. Christmas, J. Buhler, J. K. Eng, R. Bumgarner, D. R. Goodlett, R. Aebersold, and L. Hood. 2001. “Integrated Genomic and Proteomic Analyses of a Systematically Perturbed Metabolic Network.” Science 292 (5518): 929–34. Cite
Ng, W. V., S. P. Kennedy, G. G. Mahairas, B. Berquist, M. Pan, H. D. Shukla, S. R. Lasky, et al. 2000. “Genome Sequence of Halobacterium Species NRC-1.” Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 97 (22): 12176–81. Cite