Ayal Gussow, Ph.D.

Formerly a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Eugene Koonin's group at the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the National Institutes of Health. Prior to that, I completed my Ph.D. through Duke University’s Computational Biology and Bioinformatics program in 2016, conducting research under the guidance of Dr. David Goldstein.

I am also the co-founder of MedChances, a website that provides free admissions predictions for medical school applicants.

I have been programming professionally since 2004 and developing computational approaches to biological research since 2010. I received my B.Sc. in Life Sciences from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.


Contact me at ayal@ayalgussow.com.

Note: * denotes co-first authorship, ^ denotes corresponding author.

  1. Genomic determinants of pathogenicity in SARS-CoV-2 and other human coronaviruses.

Gussow AB*, Auslander N*, Faure G, Wolf YI, Zhang F, Koonin EV. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2020; 117 (26) 15193-15199.Press release and video explanation.

  1. Prediction of the virus incubation period for COVID-19 and future outbreaks.

Gussow AB*, Auslander N*, Wolf YI, Koonin EV. bioRxiv. 2020;:2020.05.19.104513. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.05.19.104513.

  1. Machine-learning approach expands the repertoire of anti-CRISPR protein families.

Gussow AB, Park AE, Borges AL, Shmakov SA, Makarova KS, Wolf YI, Koonin EV.Nature Communications. 2020; 11, 3784.

  1. Seeker: Alignment-free identification of bacteriophage genomes by deep learning.

Auslander N*, Gussow AB*^, Benler S, Wolf YI, Koonin EV. Nucleic Acids Research. 2020; gkaa856, https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkaa856.

  1. Evolutionary and functional classification of the CARF domain superfamily, key sensors in prokaryotic antivirus defense.

Makarova KS, Timinskas A, Wolf YI, Gussow AB, Siksnys V, Venclovas Č, Koonin EV. Nucleic Acids Research. 2020; gkaa635, https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkaa635.

  1. Discovery of an expansive bacteriophage family that includes the most abundant viruses from the human gut.

Yutin N, Makarova KS, Gussow AB, Krupovic M, Segall A, Edwards RA, Koonin EV.Nature Microbiology. 2017; 10.1038/s41564-017-0053-y.

  1. Orion: Detecting regions of the human non-coding genome that are intolerant to variation using population genetics.

Gussow AB^, Copeland BR, Dhindsa RS, Wang Q, Petrovski S, Majoros WH, Allen AS, Goldstein DB. PLoS ONE. 2017; 12(8): e0181604.Press release.

  1. The intolerance to functional genetic variation of protein domains predicts the localization of pathogenic mutations within genes.

Gussow AB, Petrovski S, Wang Q, Allen AS, Goldstein DB. Genome Biology. 2016; 17(1):9.

  1. Inhibition of microRNA-128 promotes excitability of cultured cortical neuronal networks.

McSweeney KM, Gussow AB, Bradrick SS, Dugger SA, Gelfman S, Wang Q, Petrovski S, Frankel WN, Boland MJ, Goldstein DB. Genome Research. 2016; gr.199828.115.

  1. The intolerance of regulatory sequence to genetic variation predicts gene dosage sensitivity.

Petrovski S*, Gussow AB*, Wang Q, Halvorsen M, Han Y, Weir WH, Allen AS, Goldstein DB. PLoS Genetics. 2015; 11.9:e1005492.

  1. XX ovarian dysgenesis is caused by a PSMC3IP/HOP2 mutation that abolishes coactivation of estrogen-driven transcription.

Zangen D, Kaufman Y, Zeligson S, Perlberg S, Fridman H, Kanaan M, Abdulhadi-Atwan M, Abu Libdeh A, Gussow A, Kisslov I, Carmel L, Renbaum P, Levy-Lahad E. The American Journal of Human Genetics. 2011; 89.4:572-579.