Norma J. Nowak, Ph.D.
Director of Science and Technology
New York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics & Life Sciences
Norma Jean Nowak, Ph.D., is recognized as a leader in the field of genomics. Her research contributed directly to the Human Genome Project, as well as to microarray-based approaches to understanding heritable disorders and cancer. In 2003, she was named director of science and technology for the New York State Center for Excellence in Bioinformatics & Life Sciences.
A graduate of the State University of New York at Buffalo (UB), where she received her Ph.D. in Experimental Pathology, Dr. Nowak has spent her career contributing to the vibrancy of the Western New York life sciences industry. She previously served since 1999 as director of the Microarray and Genomics Facility, a collaborative research lab shared by Roswell Park Cancer Institute and the UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, headquartered at RPCI. Prior to that, she was involved for 14 years in research at RPCI developing physical clone resources for cloning disease genes and mapping the human genome.
Among her major achievements, Nowak has authored landmark papers describing the cloning of several heritable cancer disorders, including a form of Ataxia Telangiectasia (Nijmegen Breakage Syndrome). Her work on the Human Genome Project was published in the genome issue of Nature. Dr. Nowak led and coordinated the three groups for the NCI extramural Cancer Chromosome Aberration Project. As part of this project, Dr. Nowak also developed BAC based array CGH (Comparative Genomic Hybridization) a microarray-based method for identifying numerical differences in DNA between tumor and normal cells and cells from individuals with genetic disorders. The results of this work were published in Nature Genetics. She also was a key member of the GENSAT project studying spatial and temporal gene expression during development of the central nervous system in mice, and this work was published in the 2003 genome edition of Nature.
Nowak, who has received more than $4 million in research grants from the National Institutes of Health and various foundations, has authored or co-authored 80 research articles in leading scientific journals and has served as an associate editor of Physiological Genomics. She recently joined the editorial board of Cytogenetics and Genome Research as an Associate Editor.
News
Takeuchi Named SUNY Distinguished
11/23/2009 - BUFFALO, NY -- "Esther S. Takeuchi, Greatbatch Professor in Power Sources Research in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, has been named a SUNY Distinguished Professor, the highest rank in the SUNY system..." [Read On...]
Turning Research Into Practicality is Focus of Roswell Park Workshop
11/4/2009 - BUFFALO, NY -- "The daylong 'translational research workshop' brought academics and industry representatives together to tackle the difficulties and opportunities of commercializing medical research..." [Read On...]
UB Engineering Professor Honored at White House
10/08/2009 - WASHINGTON, D.C. - "President Obama honored Takeuchi for inventing the battery that powers many of the world's implanted medical devices, but he just as easily could have lauded her as living proof that the American dream still comes true..." [Read On...]
Visit the News Archive
Events
December 1 - FREE Interactive video conference - "Personalized Medicine: Genomics + Data = Better Care at Lower Cost?" featuring Omid A. Moghadam, Specialist in personalized medicine including genomics and personalized health records. Click here for more information.
December 10 - "The Passport of a Life Sciences Entrepreneur," featuring Shreefel Mehta, Ph.D., MBA. Click here for more information.
To view the complete list of events and event details, please visit our Events page
To receive periodic News & Events emails from the COE, please join our mailing list!
