photo credit: Rebecca Allen Dennis L. Chao
Center for Statistics and Quantitative Infectious Diseases (CSQUID)
Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division/Public Health Sciences Division
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
1100 Fairview Ave. N. M2-B167
Seattle, WA 98109
http://www.dennischao.com
dchao @ fhcrc.org
Education
December 2004 Ph.D. in Computer Science
University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM
Dissertation: Modeling the cytotoxic T cell response. (1-sided PDF or 2-sided PDF)
June 1994 B.S.E. Computer Science
Princeton University, Princeton, NJ
Recent employment
2012-present Senior staff scientist
Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division/Public Health Sciences Division
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA
2008-2011 Staff scientist
Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division/Public Health Sciences Division
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA
2004-2008 Postdoctoral fellow
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA
1999-2004 Research assistant
UNM Computer Science Department, Albuquerque, NM
1998-1999 Teaching assistant
UNM Computer Science Department, Albuquerque, NM
1994-1998 Technical staff
Epson Palo Alto Laboratory, Palo Alto, CA
Honors, awards, and funding
2012- Mathematical modeling for the optimal control of cholera with vaccine
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
2012- Analysis and modeling of typhoid epidemiology and vaccination
Sabin Vaccine Institute/Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
2008- Models of Infectious Disease Agent Study (MIDAS) (NIH U01 GM070749)
National Institutes of Health/National Institute of General Medical Sciences
2011-2012 Development and Testing of Dengue Vaccines
Dengue Vaccine Initiative/Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
2008 Fellowship
Ryan Hill Research Foundation
2006-2008 Multi-Scale Modeling Initiative (NIH R01 CA119224)
National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institute
2005 SPAC course scholarship ($500)
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
2004-2006 Dual Mentor Fellowship
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
2002 Research, Project, and Travel grant ($500)
UNM Office of Graduate Studies
2002 Student Research Allocations Committee grant ($300)
UNM Graduate and Professional Student Association
2002 Outstanding graduate student award
UNM Computer Science Department
1999-2001 Graduate Fellow
NSF BIO Research Training Group in Ecological Complexity, UNM
1993 Elected to membership in the Society of Sigma Xi
Professional activities
2013 Symposium organizer, The global burden and control of cholera (May 15, 2013)
2012 Workshop participant, NIMBioS investigative workshop: Modeling dengue fever
2012 Consultant, First meeting on typhoid transmission, intervention, disease burden and cost-effectiveness/cost-utility modeling
2012 Advisory Board, Center for Ecogenetics and Environmental Health, Community Outreach and Ethics Core
2011 Participant, WHO Consultation on oral cholera vaccine (OCV) stockpile strategic framework: potential objectives and possible policy options
2009,2010,2011,2012 Instructor, Summer Institute in Statistics and Modeling in Infectious Diseases
2010 Symposium organizer, The Future of Flu (September 27, 2010)
2007 Symposium organizer, Biological networks: From measurements to modeling (September 10, 2007)
2007 Planning committee, 2007 FHCRC Ethics Colloquium
2005-2007 Co-manager, FHCRC Interdisciplinary Club
2005 Attendee, Pathobiology of Cancer: The Edward A. Smuckler Memorial Workshop, American Association for Cancer Research
2003 Co-founder, The MEDIOCRE Laboratory
2000 Attendee, Complex Systems Summer School, Santa Fe Institute
1999 Founder, UNM Computer Science Graduate Student Association
Publications

D. L. Chao, I. M. Longini Jr., and J. Glenn Morris Jr. Modeling cholera outbreaks. In G. Balakrish Nair and Yoshi Takeda, editors, Cholera Outbreaks. Current Topics in Microbiology and Immunology. In press.
doi:10.1007/82_2013_307

D. L. Chao. Modelling the global transmission of antiviral-resistant influenza viruses. Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses. 7(Suppl 1):58-62. 2013.
doi:10.1111/irv.12043

L. Willem, K. Van Kerckhove, D. L. Chao, N. Hens, P. Beutels. A nice day for an infection? Weather conditions and social contact patterns relevant to influenza transmission. PLoS ONE 7(11): e48695. 2012.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0048695

D. L. Chao, S. B. Halstead, M. E. Halloran, and I. M. Longini Jr. Controlling dengue with vaccines in Thailand. PLoS Negl Trop Dis 6(10):e1876. 2012.
PubMed ID: 23145197
doi:10.1371/journal.pntd.0001876

D. L. Chao, J. D. Bloom, B. F. Kochin, R. Antia, and I. M. Longini Jr. The global spread of drug-resistant influenza. Journal of the Royal Society Interface. 9(69):648-56. 2012.
doi:10.1098/rsif.2011.0427

E. Kenah, D. L. Chao, L. Matrajt, M. E. Halloran, and I. M. Longini Jr. The global transmission and control of influenza. PLoS ONE. 6(5): e19515. 2011.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0019515

D. L. Chao, L. Matrajt, N. E. Basta, J. D. Sugimoto, B. Dean, D. A. Bagwell, B. Oiulfstad, M. E. Halloran, and I. M. Longini Jr. Planning for the control of pandemic influenza H1N1 in Los Angeles County and the United States. American Journal of Epidemiology. 173(10):1121--30. 2011.
doi:10.1093/aje/kwq497
[impact factor=5.589 (2009)]

D. L. Chao, M. E. Halloran, and I. M. Longini Jr. Vaccination strategies for epidemic cholera in Haiti with implications for the developing world. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 108(17):7081-5. 2011.
doi:10.1073/pnas.1102149108

P. Wang, D. L. Chao, and L. Hsu. Learning oncogenic pathways from binary genomic instability data. Biometrics. 67(1):164-73. 2011.
doi:10.1111/j.1541-0420.2010.01417.x

D. L. Chao, M. E. Halloran, and I. M. Longini Jr. School opening dates predict pandemic influenza A (H1N1) epidemics in the United States. The Journal of Infectious Diseases. 202(6):877-880. 2010.
doi:10.1086/655810

D. L. Chao, M. E. Halloran, V. Obenchain, and I. M. Longini Jr. FluTE, a publicly available stochastic influenza epidemic simulation model. PLoS Computational Biology, 6(1): e1000656. 2010.
doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000656

Y. Yang, J. D. Sugimoto, M. E. Halloran, N. E. Basta, D. L. Chao, L. Matrajt, G. Potter, E. Kenah, I. M. Longini Jr. Transmissibility and control of pandemic influenza A (H1N1) virus. Science, 326(5953): 729-733. 2009.
doi: 10.1126/science.1177373

N. E. Basta, D. L. Chao, M. E. Halloran, L. Matrajt, I. M. Longini Jr. Strategies for pandemic and seasonal influenza vaccination of school children in the US. American Journal of Epidemiology, 170(6):679-686. 2009.
doi: 10.1093/aje/kwp237
[impact factor=5.589 (2009)]

T. G. Paulson, C. C. Maley, X. Li, H. Li, C. A. Sanchez, D. L. Chao, R. D. Odze, T. L. Vaughan, P. L. Blount, and B. J. Reid. Chromosomal instability and copy number alterations in Barrett's esophagus and esophageal adenocarcinoma. Clinical Cancer Research, 15(10):3305-14. 2009.
doi: 10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-08-2494
[impact factor=6.177 (2006)]

D. L. Chao, C. A. Sanchez, P. C. Galipeau, P. L. Blount, T. G. Paulson, D. S. Cowan, K. Ayub, R. D. Odze, P. S. Rabinovitch, and B. J. Reid. Cell proliferation, cell cycle abnormalities, and cancer outcome in patients with Barrett's esophagus: A long-term prospective study. Clinical Cancer Research, 14(21):6988-95. 2008.
doi: 10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-07-5063
[impact factor=6.177 (2006)]

D. L. Chao, J. T. Eck, D. E. Brash, C. C. Maley, and E. G. Luebeck. Pre-neoplastic lesion growth driven by the death of adjacent normal stem cells. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(39):15034-9. 2008.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.0802211105
[impact factor=9.598 (2007)]
(BibTex)
Faculty of 1000 Medicine evaluation
Nature Reviews Cancer note

P. C. Galipeau, D. L. Chao, X. Li, J. D. Arnaudo, H. D. Kissel, C. A. Sanchez, and B. J. Reid. Barrett's esophagus and esophageal adenocarcinoma epigenetic biomarker discovery using Infinium methylation. iCommunity Newsletter, Illumina, Inc., San Diego, CA, 2008.
(PDF)

R. M. Ribeiro, A. S. Perelson, D. L. Chao, and M. P. Davenport. HIV epidemiology and the impact of nonsterilizing vaccines. In Edited by R. P. Mondaini and Rui Dilão, editors, Proceedings of BIOMAT 2006: International Symposium on Mathematical and Computational Biology. pp 69-88. World Scientific Publishing, Singapore, 2007.

D. L. Chao, C. C. Maley, X. Wu, D. C. Farrow, P. C. Galipeau, C. A. Sanchez, T. G. Paulson, P. S. Rabinovitch, B. J. Reid, M. R. Spitz, and T. L. Vaughan. Mutagen sensitivity and neoplastic progression in patients with Barrett's esophagus: A prospective study. Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention, 15(10):1935-40. 2006.
doi: 10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-06-0492
[impact factor=4.289 (2006)]
(PDF, BibTex)

D. L. Chao, M. P. Davenport, S. Forrest, and A. S. Perelson. The effects of thymic selection on the range of T cell cross-reactivity. European Journal of Immunology, 35(12): 3452-9. 2005.
NIHMSID: NIHMS18092
doi: 10.1002/eji.200535098
[impact factor=4.876 (2005)]
(PDF, BibTex)

D. L. Chao, J. Balthrop, and S. Forrest. Adaptive Radio: Achieving consensus using negative preferences. In K. Schmidt, M. Pendergast, M. Ackerman, and G. Mark, editors, Group '05: Proceedings of the 2005 International ACM SIGGROUP Conference on Supporting Group Work. pp 120-3. ACM Press, New York, 2005.
doi: 10.1145/1099203.1099224
(PDF, BibTex)

M. P. Davenport, R. M. Ribeiro, D. L. Chao, and A. S. Perelson. Predicting the impact of a nonsterilizing vaccine against human immunodeficiency virus. Journal of Virology, 78(20):11340-51. 2004.
doi: 10.1128/JVI.78.20.11340-11351.2004
[impact factor=5.341 (2006)]

(PDF, BibTex)

D. L. Chao. Computer games as interfaces. interactions, 11(5): 71-2. 2004.
doi: 10.1145/1015530.1015567
(PDF, BibTex)

D. L. Chao. Modeling the cytotoxic T cell response. Ph.D. dissertation. The University of New Mexico Department of Computer Science, Albuquerque, NM, 2004.
(1-sided PDF, 2-sided PDF, BibTex)

D. L. Chao, M. P. Davenport, S. Forrest, and A. S. Perelson. A stochastic model of cytotoxic T cell responses. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 228(2): 227-40. 2004.
doi: 10.1016/j.jtbi.2003.12.011
[impact factor=1.96 (2005)]

(PDF, BibTex)

D. L. Chao, J. Balthrop, and S. Forrest. Adaptive Radio: Achieving consensus using negative preferences. Technical Report TR-CS-2004-08, The University of New Mexico Department of Computer Science, Albuquerque, NM, 2004.
(PDF, postscript)

D. L. Chao, M. P. Davenport, S. Forrest, and A. S. Perelson. Modelling the impact of antigen kinetics on T-cell activation and response. Immunology and Cell Biology, 82(1): 55-61. 2004.
doi: 10.1111/j.1440-1711.2004.01207.x
[impact factor=2.482 (2006)]

(PDF, BibTex)

D. L. Chao and S. Forrest. Information immune systems. Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines, 4(4):311-31. 2003.
doi: 10.1023/A:1026139027539
(PDF, HTML, BibTex)

D. L. Chao, M. P. Davenport, S. Forrest, and A. S. Perelson. Stochastic stage-structured modeling of the adaptive immune system. Proceedings of the IEEE Computer Society Bioinformatics Conference (CSB 2003), pp 124-131. IEEE Press, Los Alamitos, California, 2003.
doi: 10.1109/CSB.2003.1227311
[28/151=18.5% acceptance rate]

(PDF, Postscript, gzipped postscript, Powerpoint slides, HTML, BibTex)

D. L. Chao and S. Forrest. Generating biomorphs with an aesthetic immune system. In R. Standish, M. A. Bedau, and H. A. Abbass, editors, Artificial Life VIII: Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on the Simulation and Synthesis of Living Systems, pages 89-92. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2003.
[32+35/89=75.3% acceptance rate for papers+short papers]
(PDF, Postscript, gzipped postscript, HTML, BibTex)

D. L. Chao and S. Forrest. Information immune systems. In J. Timmis and P. J. Bentley, editors, Proceedings of the First International Conference on Artificial Immune Systems, pages 132-40. University of Kent at Canterbury Printing Unit, Canterbury, England, 2002.
[26/34=76.5% acceptance rate]
(PDF, Postscript, gzipped postscript, HTML, BibTex)

D. L. Chao and P. D'haeseleer. The distribution of variable-length phatic interjectives on the world wide web. Technical Report TR-CS-2001-23, The University of New Mexico Department of Computer Science, Albuquerque, NM, 2001.
(gzipped postscript, HTML)

D. L. Chao. Doom as an interface for process management. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI Letters 3, 1), pages 152-7. ACM Press, New York, 2001.
doi: 10.1145/365024.365078
[19.5% acceptance rate]

(PDF, Postscript, gzipped postscript, HTML, BibTex)

D. L. Chao and S. A. Levin. Herding behavior: The emergence of large-scale phenomena from local interactions. In S. Ruan, G. S. K. Wolkowicz and J. Wu., editors, Differential Equations with Applications to Biology, Fields Institute Communications 21, pages 81-95. American Mathematical Society, Providence, RI, 1999.

D. Wagner, M. J. F. Brown, P. Broun, W. Cuevas, L. E. Moses, D. L. Chao, and D. M. Gordon. Task-related differences in the cuticular hydrocarbon composition of the harvester ant, Pogonomyrmex barbatus. Journal of Chemical Ecology, 24(12): 2021-37. 1998.
doi: 10.1023/A:1020781508889
[impact factor=2.03 (2005)]

(PDF, BibTex)

A. Pascovici, C. Li, J. Shu, and D. L. Chao. Ink reduction for cluster dot halftoning. In Proceedings of the 1997 IS&T/SPIE International Symposium on Electronic Imaging Science and Technology, volume 3018, pages 293-9, 1997.

Selected posters and talks

Vaccination strategies for epidemic and endemic cholera control - Modeling approach. Considerations around introduction of a cholera vaccine in Bangladesh. Dhaka, Bangladesh. March 2013.

Modeling mass vaccination and other interventions: An individual-based approach. Disease Dynamics 2013: Immunization, a true multi-scale problem. Vancouver, Canada. January 2013. (Link to video)

Mathematical modeling of cholera outbreaks. Third Annual Africhol Consortium Meeting. Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire. November 2012.

Modeling the transmission of influenza in the United States. Use of Influenza Disease Models To Quantitatively Evaluate the Benefits and Risks of Vaccines: A Technical Workshop. Bethesda, MD. August 2012.

Modeling the global circulation of influenza: Preliminary results. Facing the Challenge of Infectious Diseases. Courmayeur, Italy. January 2012.

Modelling of antiviral use and resistance emergence - implications for use. Influenza Antivirals: Efficacy and Resistance. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. November 2011.

Modeling the spread of pandemic H1N1 in the United States: 2009 and beyond. Invited talk at ICCS 2010. May 2010.

Barrett's Oesophagus. Invited talk at Infección, Inflamación y Cáncer. Instituto de Investigaciones en Salud, Universidad de Costa Rica. November 2007.

D. L. Chao. Doom as a tool for system administration. Shown at the Institute for New Culture Technologies/t0 in Vienna as part of the exhibit Interface Explorer (Expanding the desktop). October 2001.

Patents
D. L. Chao. Color-patch sheet registration. U.S. Patent 6,404,517. Issued June 11, 2002.

C. Li, A. Pascovici, J. Shu, and D. L. Chao. On-line ink-duty reduction. U.S. Patent 5,799,136. Issued August 25, 1998.

Software
Dengue transmission model for Ratchaburi, Thailand. 2012.
Transmission of antiviral resistant influenza model. 2011.
Global transmission of influenza model. 2011.
Haitian cholera epidemic model. 2011.
LogitNet. 2009.
FluTE influenza epidemic simulator. 2009.
Pre-cancerous lesion growth simulation. 2008.
T cell simulation. 2003.
Adaptive Radio. 2003.
PSDoom. 1999. (available on Sourceforge)
Articles about my work
How H1N1 flu escaped Tamiflu. Fred Hutchinson's Center News. October 2011.
Researchers map the global spread of drug-resistant influenza. University of Florida press release. September 2011.
The quake that brought back cholera. NIGMS Inside Life Science. August 2011.
Oral vaccine could have halved Haiti's cholera epidemic. Fred Hutchinson's Center News. April 2011.
Vaccination would curb Haitian cholera. Nature news. April 2011.
Haiti cholera epidemic could have been blunted with use of mobile stockpile of oral vaccine. Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center press release. April 2011.
   F. Hwang. Commando line interface. Wired 8(2), page 52. February 2000.
J. Brockmeier. A SysAdmin's dream. Linux Magazine, page 76. January 2000.
J. Schmidt. Systemverwaltung nach Hackerart. c't: Magazin für Computer Technik 23, page 68. 1999.
Systemadministration mit dem Colt. IX: Magazin für professionelle Informationstechnik 12, page 44. 1999.
Kill -9 with a Doom shotgun. Slashdot, October 20, 1999.
M. Gagné. A Process Smörgåsbord. Linux Journal 104:26-29. December 2002.