Monica Munoz-Torres, PhD
Visiting Associate Professor, Biomedical Informatics

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Graduate School :
  • PhD, Clemson University
Languages: English, Spanish
Department: Biomedical Informatics

Professional Titles

  • Visiting Associate Professor
  • Program Director, Monarch Initiative and Phenomics First Resource

Recognition & Awards

  • Kavli Fellow, National Academy of Sciences (2022)
    The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) selected 185 of the nation's brightest young scientists from industry, academia, and government to participate in the 2022 U.S. and international Kavli Frontiers of Science symposia of the NAS. A committee of NAS members selected the participants from among young researchers who have already made recognized contributions to science. Attendees of these symposia receive the designation of Kavli Fellow. The Frontiers of Science symposium series provides a forum for the future leaders in U.S. science to share ideas across disciplines and to build contacts and networks as they advance in their careers. More than 6,200 young scientists have participated since the program’s founding in 1989; to date, 323 participants have been elected to the NAS and 18 have been awarded the Nobel Prize.

Research Interests

My expertise, education, and enthusiasm span genomics, biocuration, knowledge representation, and data harmonization – and the development of software tools and standards to advance these fields. The major motivations for my research are, first, to leverage the wealth of comparative genomics knowledge I’ve acquired over the past 2 decades to advance our understanding of human health and disease with translational and integrative data science – we need ALL the organisms! – and second, to continuously improve on socio-technological practices to build and coordinate research communities in these fields of study. I lead the Standards Core in the BRIDGE Center project of the NIH Bridge to Artificial Intelligence (Bridge2AI) Program, and I am the Program Director for the Phenomics First Resource, an NHGRI Center of Excellence in Genomic Science, and for the Monarch Initiative, the flagship Program of TISLab.

Publications

  • Schofield P et al., GA4GH Phenopackets: A practical introduction. Advanced Genetics. 2022 doi:10.1002/ggn2.202200016
  • Harris et al., BOSC 2022: the first hybrid and 23rd annual Bioinformatics Open Source Conference. F1000Research 2022 https://f1000research.com/articles/11-1034
  • Vasilevsky NA, et al. Mondo: Unifying diseases for the world, by the world, 2022; medRxiv 2022.04.13.22273750; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.04.13.22273750
  • Haendel M, et al. Cancer Research Data Commons End-to-End Requirements Analysis. 2022; Zenodo https://zenodo.org/record/6167843
  • NIH Office of Research Infrastructure Programs (ORIP), Monarch Overview, 2022 https://youtu.be/SuUKqG2tbx0
  • Matentzoglu N, Balhoff JP, Bello SM, Bizon C, Brush M, Callahan TJ, Chute CG, Duncan WD, Evelo CT, Gabriel D, Graybeal J, Gray A, Gyori BM, Haendel M, Harmse H, Harris NL, Harrow I, Hegde HB, Hoyt AL, Hoyt CT, Jiao D, Jiménez-Ruiz E, Jupp S, Kim H, Koehler S, Liener T, Long Q, Malone J, McLaughlin JA, McMurry JA, Moxon S, Munoz-Torres MC, Osumi-Sutherland D, Overton JA, Peters B, Putman T, Queralt-Rosinach N, Shefchek K, Solbrig H, Thessen A, Tudorache T, Vasilevsky N, Wagner AH, Mungall CJ. A Simple Standard for Sharing Ontological Mappings (SSSOM). Database (Oxford). 2022 May 25;2022. PubMed PMID: 35616100
  • Dhombres F, Morgan P, Chaudhari BP, Filges I, Sparks TN, Lapunzina P, Roscioli T, Agarwal U, Aggarwal S, Beneteau C, Cacheiro P, Carmody LC, Collardeau-Frachon S, Dempsey EA, Dufke A, Duyzend MH, El Ghosh M, Giordano JL, Glad R, Grinfelde I, Iliescu DG, Ladewig MS, Munoz-Torres MC, Pollazzon M, Radio FC, Rodo C, Silva RG, Smedley D, Sundaramurthi JC, Toro S, Valenzuela I, Vasilevsky NA, Wapner RJ, Zemet R, Haendel MA, Robinson PN. Prenatal phenotyping: A community effort to enhance the Human Phenotype Ontology. Am J Med Genet C Semin Med Genet. 2022 Jun;190(2):231-242. PubMed PMID: 35872606
  • Jacobsen JOB, Baudis M, Baynam GS, Beckmann JS, Beltran S, Buske OJ, Callahan TJ, Chute CG, Courtot M, Danis D, Elemento O, Essenwanger A, Freimuth RR, Gargano MA, Groza T, Hamosh A, Harris NL, Kaliyaperumal R, Lloyd KCK, Khalifa A, Krawitz PM, Köhler S, Laraway BJ, Lehväslaiho H, Matalonga L, McMurry JA, Metke-Jimenez A, Mungall CJ, Munoz-Torres MC, Ogishima S, Papakonstantinou A, Piscia D, Pontikos N, Queralt-Rosinach N, Roos M, Sass J, Schofield PN, Seelow D, Siapos A, Smedley D, Smith LD, Steinhaus R, Sundaramurthi JC, Swietlik EM, Thun S, Vasilevsky NA, Wagner AH, Warner JL, Weiland C, Haendel MA, Robinson PN. The GA4GH Phenopacket schema defines a computable representation of clinical data. Nat Biotechnol. 2022 Jun;40(6):817-820. PubMed PMID: 35705716
  • Rehm HL, Page AJH, Smith L, Adams JB, Alterovitz G, Babb LJ, Barkley MP, Baudis M, Beauvais MJS, Beck T, Beckmann JS, Beltran S, Bernick D, Bernier A, Bonfield JK, Boughtwood TF, Bourque G, Bowers SR, Brookes AJ, Brudno M, Brush MH, Bujold D, Burdett T, Buske OJ, Cabili MN, Cameron DL, Carroll RJ, Casas-Silva E, Chakravarty D, Chaudhari BP, Chen SH, Cherry JM, Chung J, Cline M, Clissold HL, Cook-Deegan RM, Courtot M, Cunningham F, Cupak M, Davies RM, Denisko D, Doerr MJ, Dolman LI, Dove ES, Dursi LJ, Dyke SOM, Eddy JA, Eilbeck K, Ellrott KP, Fairley S, Fakhro KA, Firth HV, Fitzsimons MS, Fiume M, Flicek P, Fore IM, Freeberg MA, Freimuth RR, Fromont LA, Fuerth J, Gaff CL, Gan W, Ghanaim EM, Glazer D, Green RC, Griffith M, Griffith OL, Grossman RL, Groza T, Auvil JMG, Guigó R, Gupta D, Haendel MA, Hamosh A, Hansen DP, Hart RK, Hartley DM, Haussler D, Hendricks-Sturrup RM, Ho CWL, Hobb AE, Hoffman MM, Hofmann OM, Holub P, Hsu JS, Hubaux JP, Hunt SE, Husami A, Jacobsen JO, Jamuar SS, Janes EL, Jeanson F, Jené A, Johns AL, Joly Y, Jones SJM, Kanitz A, Kato K, Keane TM, Kekesi-Lafrance K, Kelleher J, Kerry G, Khor SS, Knoppers BM, Konopko MA, Kosaki K, Kuba M, Lawson J, Leinonen R, Li S, Lin MF, Linden M, Liu X, Udara Liyanage I, Lopez J, Lucassen AM, Lukowski M, Mann AL, Marshall J, Mattioni M, Metke-Jimenez A, Middleton A, Milne RJ, Molnár-Gábor F, Mulder N, Munoz-Torres MC, Nag R, Nakagawa H, Nasir J, Navarro A, Nelson TH, Niewielska A, Nisselle A, Niu J, Nyrönen TH, O'Connor BD, Oesterle S, Ogishima S, Wang VO, Paglione LAD, Palumbo E, Parkinson HE, Philippakis AA, Pizarro AD, Prlic A, Rambla J, Rendon A, Rider RA, Robinson PN, Rodarmer KW, Rodriguez LL, Rubin AF, Rueda M, Rushton GA, Ryan RS, Saunders GI, Schuilenburg H, Schwede T, Scollen S, Senf A, Sheffield NC, Skantharajah N, Smith AV, Sofia HJ, Spalding D, Spurdle AB, Stark Z, Stein LD, Suematsu M, Tan P, Tedds JA, Thomson AA, Thorogood A, Tickle TL, Tokunaga K, Törnroos J, Torrents D, Upchurch S, Valencia ... GA4GH: International policies and standards for data sharing across genomic research and healthcare. Cell Genom. 2021 Nov 10;1(2). PubMed PMID: 35072136
  • Köhler S, Gargano M, Matentzoglu N, Carmody LC, Lewis-Smith D, Vasilevsky NA, Danis D, Balagura G, Baynam G, Brower AM, Callahan TJ, Chute CG, Est JL, Galer PD, Ganesan S, Griese M, Haimel M, Pazmandi J, Hanauer M, Harris NL, Hartnett MJ, Hastreiter M, Hauck F, He Y, Jeske T, Kearney H, Kindle G, Klein C, Knoflach K, Krause R, Lagorce D, McMurry JA, Miller JA, Munoz-Torres MC, Peters RL, Rapp CK, Rath AM, Rind SA, Rosenberg AZ, Segal MM, Seidel MG, Smedley D, Talmy T, Thomas Y, Wiafe SA, Xian J, Yüksel Z, Helbig I, Mungall CJ, Haendel MA, Robinson PN. The Human Phenotype Ontology in 2021. Nucleic Acids Res. 2021 Jan 8;49(D1):D1207-D1217. PubMed PMID: 33264411
  • Reese JT, Unni D, Callahan TJ, Cappelletti L, Ravanmehr V, Carbon S, Shefchek KA, Good BM, Balhoff JP, Fontana T, Blau H, Matentzoglu N, Harris NL, Munoz-Torres MC, Haendel MA, Robinson PN, Joachimiak MP, Mungall CJ. KG-COVID-19: A Framework to Produce Customized Knowledge Graphs for COVID-19 Response. Patterns (N Y). 2021 Jan 8;2(1):100155. PubMed PMID: 33196056
  • Shefchek KA, Harris NL, Gargano M, Matentzoglu N, Unni D, Brush M, Keith D, Conlin T, Vasilevsky N, Zhang XA, Balhoff JP, Babb L, Bello SM, Blau H, Bradford Y, Carbon S, Carmody L, Chan LE, Cipriani V, Cuzick A, Della Rocca M, Dunn N, Essaid S, Fey P, Grove C, Gourdine JP, Hamosh A, Harris M, Helbig I, Hoatlin M, Joachimiak M, Jupp S, Lett KB, Lewis SE, McNamara C, Pendlington ZM, Pilgrim C, Putman T, Ravanmehr V, Reese J, Riggs E, Robb S, Roncaglia P, Seager J, Segerdell E, Similuk M, Storm AL, Thaxon C, Thessen A, Jacobsen JOB, McMurry JA, Groza T, Köhler S, Smedley D, Robinson PN, Mungall CJ, Haendel MA, Munoz-Torres MC, Osumi-Sutherland D. The Monarch Initiative in 2019: an integrative data and analytic platform connecting phenotypes to genotypes across species. Nucleic Acids Res. 2020 Jan 8;48(D1):D704-D715. PubMed PMID: 31701156
  • Gourdine JF, Brush MH, Vasilevsky NA, Shefchek K, Köhler S, Matentzoglu N, Munoz-Torres MC, McMurry JA, Zhang XA, Robinson PN, Haendel MA. Representing glycophenotypes: semantic unification of glycobiology resources for disease discovery. Database (Oxford). 2019 Jan 1;2019. PubMed PMID: 31735951
  • Munoz-Torres M, Carbon S. Get GO! Retrieving GO Data Using AmiGO, QuickGO, API, Files, and Tools. Methods Mol Biol. 2017;1446:149-160. PubMed PMID: 27812941
View All (14 Total) View Less

Professional Memberships

  • Health Level 7 International (HL7), Member
  • Genetics Society of America (GSA), Member
  • International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB), Member
  • Open Bioinformatics Foundation (OBF), Member
  • International Society for Biocuration (ISB), Member
  • Clemson University Alumni Association, Member
  • Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS), Member
  • American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Member

Practice Locations

UCHealth Anschutz Outpatient Pavilion - Anschutz Medical Campus
1635 Aurora Ct
Aurora, CO 80045
720-848-0000

Volunteer Activities
Lead. Communities Organized to Prepare for Emergencies (COPE).

Public Speaking
Yes

General Information

Graduate Schools:
  • PhD, Clemson University (0001)
Languages: English, Spanish
Department: Biomedical Informatics
Contact Us
CU Anschutz
Fitzsimons Building

13001 East 17th Place
Campus Box C290
Aurora, CO 80045

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