As with others, we at Sage Bionetworks are mourning the passing of Atul, our colleague and joint architect of this organization. One instance that illustrates how important his voice was to Sage is the time when, along with Trey Ideker and Eric Schadt, Atul helped us form the "Sage Bionetworks “Federation.”
While he was at Stanford, he hosted all of us and helped finalize our charter for a Sage Federation. It was framed so that all students in these four individual labs were given full and direct access to what was in each other’s labs—from reagents to code to data—and, as one large lab, encouraged students to find counterparts in other labs to collaborate with on projects.
What was the "Sage Bionetworks Federation"? ➡️
perplexity.ai/search/what-wa…
This Sage Federation worked on several projects, but one of the best examples—driven jointly by students in the Ideker Lab and at Sage Bionetworks (Justin Guinney)—was the successful search for how methylation patterns could predict biological age. This work was published in 2013 in Molecular Cell:
doi.org/10.1016/j.molcel.201…
This is notable for both Biomarker Development and Open Science.
Biomarker Development:Â The paper established DNA methylation as a robust biomarker for aging, influencing subsequent research on epigenetic clocks and age-related disease prediction.
Collaborative Science:Â It exemplified the power of data sharing and collaboration in advancing biomedical research.
We at Sage will miss you, Atul.
Stephen Friend
Chairman of the Board
Sage Bionetworks
Luca Foschini
President
Sage Bionetworks
(Photo credit: Noah Berger/UCSF)