Rate My Professor Michael Inouye

Professor Michael Inouye serves as Professor of Systems Genomics and Population Health in the Department of Public Health and Primary Care at the University of Cambridge, a key figure in Medicine with a specialization in systems genomics and population health. He holds concurrent roles as Director of Data Sciences (Clinical) and Munz Chair of Cardiovascular Prediction and Prevention at the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute. Inouye obtained dual BSc degrees in Biochemistry and Economics from the University of Washington in 2004, an MSc in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2005, and a PhD in Computational Genomics from Leiden University and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in 2010, supervised by Professors Leena Peltonen and Gert-Jan van Ommen. His professional journey started at age 19 with analysis of draft Human Genome Project data, emphasizing gene finding and protein structure prediction. After graduate studies at UCLA, he joined the Sanger Institute in 2005, playing a major role in analytics for early genome-wide association studies and multi-omic data integrations. He then completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne from 2010 to 2012 before being appointed to the faculty at the University of Melbourne in 2012, where he built a systems genomics research program focused on clinical and public health applications.

In 2017, Inouye founded the Inouye Lab, operating across the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute in Australia and the University of Cambridge in the UK, concentrating on systems genomics advancements including polygenic risk scores, multi-omics integration, and computational tools. He leads as Theme Lead for Data Science and Population Health at the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre since 2022, Turing Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute from 2024 to 2026, and Director of Postgraduate Education (Research) in the Department of Public Health and Primary Care since 2025. His research centers on enhancing disease prediction and prevention through polygenic scores, particularly for cardiovascular conditions, unraveling disease mechanisms with multi-omics data, and advancing green computing via the Green Algorithms Initiative. Prominent publications feature "Genomic risk prediction of coronary artery disease in 480,000 adults: Implications for primary prevention" (Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 2018), "Towards responsible use of polygenic risk scores in the clinic: potential benefits, risks and gaps" (Nature Medicine, 2021), "Polygenic risk scores in cardiovascular risk prediction: a cohort study and modelling analyses" (PLOS Medicine, 2021), "The Polygenic Score Catalog as an open database for reproducibility and systematic evaluation" (Nature Genetics, 2021), and "Green Algorithms: Quantifying the carbon emissions of computation" (Advanced Science, 2022). Awards include the NHMRC Peter Doherty Early Career Fellowship (2010-2014), NHMRC RD Wright Postdoctoral Fellowship (2014-2018), and National Heart Foundation Future Leader Fellowship (2014-2018). His scholarly impact exceeds 51,000 Google Scholar citations, shaping genomic applications in clinical practice and public health.