Welcoming New Faculty – Matthew Brian Couger, PhD

Please join us in welcoming Matthew Brian Couger, PhD, as a new faculty member in the Department of Surgery.

Matthew Brian Couger, PhD
Lead Investigator, Division of Thoracic Surgery

Dr. Couger is a graduate of Oklahoma State University, where he received his PhD in microbiology and molecular genetics. Before coming to the Brigham, he worked as a bioinformatics specialist at the Oklahoma State University High Performance Computing Center.

Highlights of his research include: Co-creating the extremely popular RNA analysis functional annotation software Trinotate, producing the first murine genome using 10x genomics sequencing, writing numerous papers on microbial ecology, designing a 40k marker array for the eagle genotyping and producing the first genomic assembly for the enigmatic anaerobic fungi.

Dr. Couger’s research interests include: Bioinformatics, computational biology, high performance computing, big data, cellular biology, RNA-seq, machine learning, software design, whole genome assembly, variant discovery and population genetics.

Dr. Couger’s research in bioinformatics and genomics includes 46 publications in journals such as the ISME Journal, Applied and Environmental Microbiology, Cell Reports, Nature Methods and G3: Genes, Genomes, Genetics.

At the Brigham, Dr. Couger will be working on computational oncology and other big data projects for the Division of Thoracic Surgery as well as helping establish this resource for the DOS.