Simon Mercer |
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Biography Program Manager,
External Research & Programs, Microsoft Research
Having obtained a Ph.D. in Zoology from Oxford University in 1991, Simon Mercer managed to turn an interest in computers and databases into a profession by working for the Medical Research Council to establish the Human Chromosome Abnormality Database, a national healthcare resource still in use in the UK. He then worked at the Max-Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin, Germany where he helped to create the Primary Database of the German Human Genome Project. Mercer returned to the UK in 1998 to head the Oracle database group at the Sanger Institute in Cambridge, at a time when the 'race for the Human Genome' dictated a thousandfold increase in sequencing throughput and a corresponding increase in the ability of software and databases to handle the data flow. Mercer moved to Canada in 2001, becoming a Director in the National Research Council of Canada and manager of the Canadian Bioinformatics Resource, a pioneer in nationally distributed bioinformatics services and grid technology. Following the events of September 2001, Mercer was asked by the President of Gene Codes Corporation Howard Cash to join the team working for the New York Office of the Chief Medical Examiner to develop new software for DNA analysis and data handing for the purpose of identifying the remains of those killed at the World Trade Center. Mercer now works as a Program Manager in the External Research & Programs team of Microsoft Research, working to advance the state of the art in basic life sciences research by building collaborations with academia.
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