Olivier Elemento, Ph.D.

Professor of Physiology and Biophysics

  • Walter B. Wriston Research Scholar
  • Professor of Computational Genomics in Computational Biomedicine and Associate Director of the Institute for Computational Biomedicine
  • Director of the Englander Institute for Precision Medicine
  • Associate Director of the Institute for Computational Biomedicine

646-962-5726

1305 York Avenue, Room Y-13.13
New York, NY 10021

Lab website: http://physiology.med.cornell.edu/faculty/elemento/lab/

Techniques

Research Areas

Member of:

Research Summary:

The Elemento lab combines Big Data analytics with experimentation to develop entirely new ways to help prevent, diagnose, understand, treat and ultimately cure cancer. Our research involves routine use of ultrafast DNA sequencing, proteomics, high-performance computing, mathematical modeling, and artificial intelligence/machine learning.

More specifically, we are working on :

  • Systems biology of regulatory networks in normal and malignant cells, with a strong focus on blood cancers (lymphomas and leukemias). We use ChIP-seq, RNA-seq, computational modeling to investigate how genes are regulated in cancer cells and how gene regulation in cancer cells differs from normal cells.
  • Cancer genomics and precision medicine. Using novel computational algorithms, we seek to identify new cancer mutations and understand why and where cancer mutations occur. We work on determining whether 3D chromatin architecture predicts where mutations are most likely to occur.
  • Epigenomics of cancer. Genes coding for proteins that modify, maintain or read the epigenome (DNA methylation and histone modifications) and are among the most frequently mutated genes in cancer. We use high-throughput experimental approaches and pattern detection techniques to investigate what these genes do and the genomewide epigenomic patterns they mediate.
  • Tumor genome evolution, anticancer drug resistance. Cancer is a fundamentally evolutionary disease. Using high-throughput sequencing, we are investigating how the tumor genome (and epigenome) evolves in time and particularly upon drug treatment.
  • Early cancer detection using machine learning. We use advanced machine learning approaches (artificial intelligence techniques) to detect cancer as early as possible and help guide treatment accordingly. One of our algorithms for thyroid cancer detection, based on Support Vector Machines, was recently licensed by Prolias Technologies.
  • Development of innovative computational approaches for analysis of high-throughput experiments (metabolomics, proteomics, high-throughout sequencing, etc) performed on cancer cells. For example we have developed ChIPseeqer, a broadly used ChIPseq data analysis framework.

 

Recent Publications:

  1. Ruan, J, Bond, DA, Shah, B, Allan, JN, Rutherford, SC, Gribbin, C et al.. MRD-driven initial therapy of acalabrutinib and lenalidomide plus rituximab or obinutuzumab for mantle cell lymphoma. Blood Adv. 2026;10 (4):1381-1394. doi: 10.1182/bloodadvances.2025017760. PubMed PMID:41733969 .
  2. Purkayastha, S, Park, J, Beyer, S, Chandra, A, Markowitz, SM, Lerman, BB et al.. Utilization of Serum Metabolomics and Polygenic Risk Scores in a Novel Risk Stratification Tool for the Prediction of Incident Atrial Fibrillation. Circ Arrhythm Electrophysiol. 2026; :e013858. doi: 10.1161/CIRCEP.125.013858. PubMed PMID:41711031 .
  3. Razavian, N, Batchu-Green, P, Chowdhry, V, Elemento, O, Rajpurkar, P, Saria, S et al.. Catalyzing Health AI by Fixing Payment Systems. NEJM AI. 2025;2 (12):. doi: 10.1056/aipc2500871. PubMed PMID:41695240 PubMed Central PMC12900248.
  4. Xu, C, Xu, J, Bulusu, KC, Pan, H, Elemento, O. BEACON: predicting side effects and therapeutics outcomes to drugs by Bridging knowlEdge grAph with CONtextual language model. bioRxiv. 2026; :. doi: 10.64898/2026.01.29.702277. PubMed PMID:41659468 PubMed Central PMC12874035.
  5. Xu, C, Us, I, Cohen-Setton, J, Milo, M, Sidders, B, Fitzgibbon, J et al.. PAIRWISE: Deep Learning-based Prediction of Effective Personalized Drug Combinations in Cancer. Res Sq. 2026; :. doi: 10.21203/rs.3.rs-8518203/v1. PubMed PMID:41646323 PubMed Central PMC12869695.
  6. Kaza, S, Mohanty, AS, Serpedin, A, Yau, J, Kim, YE, Kutler, RB et al.. Exploring Real-Time Tracking of Vocal Fold Polyps in Video-Stroboscopy Using Deep Learning. Laryngoscope. 2026; :. doi: 10.1002/lary.70396. PubMed PMID:41623203 .
  7. He, L, Li, H, Wang, S, Baik, E, Kervin, S, Zhao, R et al.. Decoding Gender in Cough Sounds: A Transformer-Based Analysis. Laryngoscope. 2026; :. doi: 10.1002/lary.70393. PubMed PMID:41588706 .
  8. Al Assaad, M, Hadi, K, Levine, MF, Guevara, D, Patel, M, Tranquille, M et al.. Whole genome sequencing approach to assess homologous recombination deficiency in a pan-cancer cohort. Commun Med (Lond). 2026;6 (1):5. doi: 10.1038/s43856-025-01308-5. PubMed PMID:41526458 PubMed Central PMC12796271.
  9. Surapaneni, S, Kutler, RB, Setzen, SA, Kim, YE, Yao, P, Siddiqui, SH et al.. A Multimodal Approach for Deep-Learning Classification of Vocal Fold Pathologies in Stroboscopy. Laryngoscope. 2026; :. doi: 10.1002/lary.70355. PubMed PMID:41489089 .
  10. Bayou, N, Henretta, S, Munoz-Arcos, L, Molteni, E, Gianni, C, Serafini, MS et al.. Quantitative HER2 profiling on circulating tumor cells using an EpCAM-independent platform in metastatic breast cancer. Cancer Cell Int. 2025;25 (1):439. doi: 10.1186/s12935-025-04036-x. PubMed PMID:41444606 PubMed Central PMC12729166.
  11. Ruan, J, Bond, DA, Shah, B, Allan, JN, Rutherford, SC, Gribbin, C et al.. MRD-driven initial therapy of acalabrutinib and lenalidomide plus rituximab or obinutuzumab for mantle cell lymphoma. Blood Adv. 2026;10 (4):1381-1394. doi: 10.1182/bloodadvances.2025017760. PubMed PMID:41289154 .
  12. Bose, A, Liu, W, Yoo, P, Sami, A, Boniecki, MT, Deshpande, M et al.. APOBEC3A-Induced DNA Damage Drives Polymerase θ Dependency and Synthetic Lethality in Cancer. bioRxiv. 2025; :. doi: 10.1101/2025.10.21.682588. PubMed PMID:41278855 PubMed Central PMC12633405.
  13. He, Y, Waltman, P, Kane, T, Sigouros, M, Chandra, P, Gorski, K et al.. Longitudinal Genomic Analysis of Five Cases of Recurrent Thymomas. J Thorac Oncol. 2025; :. doi: 10.1016/j.jtho.2025.11.011. PubMed PMID:41274415 .
  14. Dorr, DA, Krussel, A, Hauck, R, Jackson, C, Dalal, A, Bedrick, S et al.. Adapting data science competencies by role and purpose: Voice AI. Front Digit Health. 2025;7 :1610253. doi: 10.3389/fdgth.2025.1610253. PubMed PMID:41195285 PubMed Central PMC12582912.
  15. Gilani, A, Stein, BD, Hoffmann, A, Pereira de Lima, R, Ha, EE, Homan, EA et al.. Secretory kinase FAM20C triggers adipocyte dysfunction, inciting insulin resistance and inflammation in obesity. J Clin Invest. 2026;136 (1):. doi: 10.1172/JCI191075. PubMed PMID:41148235 PubMed Central PMC12721910.
  16. Elemento, O, Khozin, S, Sternberg, CN. The use of artificial intelligence for cancer therapeutic decision-making. NEJM AI. 2025;2 (5):. doi: 10.1056/aira2401164. PubMed PMID:41112204 PubMed Central PMC12530061.
  17. Gallois, H, Ivkovic, L, Evangelista, E, Bensoussan, Y, B2AI-Voice Consortium, Bélisle-Pipon, JC et al.. "Low Risk, High Happiness": A Review of Openly Declared Ethical and Legal Practices in Voice Biomarker Health-Tech Start-Ups. Health Care Anal. 2025; :. doi: 10.1007/s10728-025-00539-w. PubMed PMID:41091343 .
  18. Bai, Y, Agustinus, AS, Yomtoubian, S, Meydan, C, McNally, DR, Yoffe, L et al.. Epigenetic Regulation of Chromosomal Instability by EZH2 Methyltransferase. Cancer Discov. 2026;16 (1):135-154. doi: 10.1158/2159-8290.CD-25-0947. PubMed PMID:41036949 PubMed Central PMC12768130.
  19. Umesh, A, Cordogan, S, Simpson, SK, Bram, JT, Jones, RH, Schairer, WW et al.. Genetic Variants Related to TGF-β Signaling Pathway Modulate Risk of Meniscus Injury: A Multiancestry Genome-wide Association Study. Clin Orthop Relat Res. 2026;484 (1):178-193. doi: 10.1097/CORR.0000000000003679. PubMed PMID:40971882 .
  20. Kyei, I, Bea, VJ, Gyan, KK, Adjei, E, Stonaker, B, Bekele, M et al.. Oncologic Anthropology and the African Diaspora: Twenty-Year Anniversary Report, International Center for the Study of Breast Cancer Subtypes (ICSBCS). Ann Surg Oncol. 2025; :. doi: 10.1245/s10434-025-17807-7. PubMed PMID:40914775 .
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