Editing Stephen Altschul

{{short description|American mathematician|bot=PearBOT 5}}
{{Infobox scientist
 |birth_name        = Stephen Frank Altschul
 |image             = 
 |birth_date        = {{Birth date and age|1957|02|28}}
 |birth_place       =
 |death_date        =
 |death_place       =
 |residence         =
 |citizenship       = [[United States]]
 |nationality       =
 |ethnicity         =
 |field             = [[Bioinformatics]]
 |work_institutions = [[National Center for Biotechnology Information|NCBI]]
 |alma_mater        = [[Harvard University]] (A.B., Mathematics)<br>[[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]] (Ph.D., Mathematics)
 |doctoral_advisor  = [[Daniel Kleitman]]<ref name="mathgene">{{MathGenealogy|id=64861}}</ref>
 | thesis_title = Aspects of Biological Sequence Comparison
 | thesis_url = https://www.proquest.com/docview/303525377/
 | thesis_year = 1987
 |doctoral_students =
 |known_for         = [[BLAST (biotechnology)|BLAST]]
 |influences        =
 |influenced        =
 |prizes            =
 | website = {{URL|https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/research/staff/altschul}}
|spouse=Caroline Kershaw James (m. 1994)
}}
'''Stephen Frank Altschul''' (born February 28, 1957) is an American [[mathematician]] who has designed [[algorithm]]s that are used in the field of [[bioinformatics]] (the Karlin–Altschul algorithm<ref>{{Cite journal 
| last1 = Altschul | first1 = S. 
| authorlink1 = Stephen Altschul
| last2 = Gish | first2 = W. 
| authorlink2 = Warren Gish
| last3 = Miller | first3 = W. 
| authorlink3 = Webb Miller
| last4 = Myers | first4 = E. 
| authorlink4 = Eugene Myers
| last5 = Lipman | first5 = D. 
| authorlink5 = David J. Lipman
| title = Basic Local Alignment Search Tool 
| doi = 10.1016/S0022-2836(05)80360-2 
| journal = Journal of Molecular Biology 
| volume = 215 
| issue = 3 
| pages = 403–410 
| year = 1990 
| pmid = 2231712 
| pmc = 
| s2cid = 14441902 
}}</ref> and its successors<ref>{{Cite journal | last1 = Altschul | first1 = S. | authorlink1 = Stephen Altschul| last2 = Madden | first2 = T. L. | last3 = Schäffer | first3 = A. A. | last4 = Zhang | first4 = J. | last5 = Zhang | first5 = Z. | last6 = Miller | first6 = W. | authorlink6 = Webb Miller| last7 = Lipman | first7 = D. J. | authorlink7 = David J. Lipman| title = Gapped BLAST and PSI-BLAST: A new generation of protein database search programs | doi = 10.1093/nar/25.17.3389 | journal = Nucleic Acids Research | volume = 25 | issue = 17 | pages = 3389–3402 | year = 1997 | pmid =  9254694| pmc =146917 }}</ref>). Altschul is the co-author of the [[BLAST (biotechnology)|BLAST]] algorithm used for [[sequence analysis]] of [[protein]]s and [[nucleotide]]s.<ref name="microsoft">{{AcademicSearch|2212030}}</ref><ref name="dblp">{{DBLP|name=Stephen F. Altschul}}</ref>

==Education==
Altschul graduated summa cum laude<ref name="wedding">[https://www.nytimes.com/1994/04/17/style/weddings-caroline-james-stephen-altschul.html New York Times: "Weddings; Caroline James, Stephen Altschul"] April 17, 1994</ref> from [[Harvard University]], where he was elected to [[Phi Beta Kappa]] in [[mathematics]] and has a [[Doctor of Philosophy|Ph.D.]] in the same field from [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]].<ref name="altschulphd">{{cite thesis |degree=PhD |first=Stephen Frank|last=Altschul |title=Aspects of Biological Sequence Comparison |publisher=Massachusetts Institute of Technology |date=1987 |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/303525377/}}</ref>

==Research==
His research interest centers around sequence-alignment algorithms, statistics of sequence comparison, and measurement of sequence similarity.<ref name="microsoft"/><ref name="dblp"/>

==Background==
He is the son of Stephanie Rosemary (née Wagner) and [[Arthur Altschul]], a former partner at [[Goldman Sachs]].<ref>[https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9507E3DA1138F932A15750C0A9649C8B63 Death notice of Arthur Goodhart Altschul]</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1956/03/18/archives/trota-announced-of-miss-wagner-to-be-wed-in-may.html |title = TROTA ANNOUNCED OF MISS WAGNER; To Be Wed in May - The New York Times|newspaper = The New York Times|date = 18 March 1956}}</ref> In 1994, he married Caroline Kershaw James, the daughter of Caroline James-Pritz of [[Cincinnati]] and Harry Keithan James of [[Dayton, Ohio]]. The Rev. Luther D. Miller Jr. performed the ceremony at St. David's Episcopal Church in Washington.<ref name="wedding" />

His half-sister is journalist [[Serena Altschul]], who is known for her tenure at [[MTV]]. On his father's side, he is a member of the [[Lehman family]].

He has two sons, James and William Altschul. William Altschul is a former college Ultimate player at [[Washington University in St. Louis]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://play.usaultimate.org/teams/events/Eventteam/?TeamId=x%2f0V5EX9wIVnzxDyk7NGO5XjowKF%2boMV0pElxx1dgY8%3d |title = Event Team {{!}} Play USA Ultimate}}</ref>

==From mathematics to bioinformatics==
During his undergraduate years, Altschul developed an interest in biology. As a result, he started reading books about DNA. One of the books that he read was ''[[The Double Helix]]'' by Watson.{{cn|date=May 2020}} Furthermore, he had also taken a course on Evolutionary Biology.{{cn|date=May 2020}} Altschul had also spent two summers working in laboratories at Rockfeller University where he helped to write computer codes for an X-ray crystallography project.{{cn|date=May 2020}}

Due to his interest, Altschul had considered trying to apply to graduate school in biology.{{cn|date=May 2020}} He instead decided to apply to programs in applied mathematics, with the hope of finding some applications of mathematics to biology to work on.

==Notable appointments/positions held==
Upon graduation, Stephen Frank Altschul worked in the Mathematics Research Branch of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases as an IRTA postdoctoral fellowship. From 1990 to present, he has worked in the NCBI Computational Biology Branch, holding the position of senior investigator.

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

==External links==
* [http://isihighlycited.com/author.cgi?&link1=Search&link2=Search%20Results&AuthLastName=Altschul&AuthFirstName=Stephen&AuthMiddleName=&AuthMailnstName=&CountryID=-1&DisciplineID=0&id=297 highlycited.com]

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[[Category:American theoretical biologists]]
[[Category:American bioinformaticians]]
[[Category:American people of German-Jewish descent]]
[[Category:Harvard College alumni]]
[[Category:1957 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Lehman family]]
[[Category:Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science alumni]]