Paul D Thomas

Paul D Thomas is a Professor at the University of Southern California with dual appointments in the Keck School of Medicine (Department of Preventive Medicine) and Dornsife School of Letters and Sciences (Department of Quantitative and Computational Biology). He serves as Director of the Division of Bioinformatics and leads the Gene Sequence, Function, and Health Laboratory. Additionally, he is a Director of the Gene Ontology Consortium, a major international bioinformatics initiative.

His research integrates computational biology, genomics, and evolutionary analysis to study:

• Gene function prediction and evolutionary modelling
• Bioinformatics resource development (PANTHER, InterPro, Gene Ontology)
• Impact of genetic variation on human health
• Ortholog detection and biodiversity genomics
• AI applications in biological knowledge democratization

Recent publications (2021-2025) demonstrate strong focus on:

• Large-scale genomic databases and annotation tools
• Evolutionary analysis of protein families and gene functions
• SARS-CoV-2 diagnostics and pandemic response
• Community-driven standards in bioinformatics

Awards include:

• Highly Cited Researcher in Biology & Biochemistry (Thomson-Reuters/Clarivate, 2014-2024)

He leads an active research team including Huaiyu Mi (Associate Professor), software engineers (Anushya Muruganujan, Tremayne Mushayahama, Dustin Ebert), biocurators (Pascale Gaudet, Marc Feuermann), and PhD student Christopher Williams. Current NIH grants support his work on genome analysis (HG012212, HG011851, HG010859, CA196569).