biology

Hilary Finucane

Hilary Finucane is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Hilary Finucane rather than just read about it. In short: Hilary Kiyo Finucane is an American computational biologist who is Co-Director of the Program in Medical and Population Genetics at the Broad Institute. Her group combines genetic data with molecular data to understand the origins and mechanisms of disease.

Key takeaways

Hilary Finucane belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Hilary Finucane to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Hilary Finucane from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Hilary Kiyo Finucane is an American computational biologist who is Co-Director of the Program in Medical and Population Genetics at the Broad Institute. Her group combines genetic data with molecular data to understand the origins and mechanisms of disease.

Early life and education Finucane grew up in Maryland. She has said that her family enjoyed music and science. Finucane became interested in policy as a child, and started an Amnesty International student chapter at her high school. She was an undergraduate student at Harvard College, where eventually majored in mathematics and spent her spare time taking part in chamber music. After graduating from Harvard in 2009 Finucane moved to Israel where she joined the Weizmann Institute of Science. Here she focused on theoretical computer science, completing a dissertation on geometric group theory. She developed an analytical tool (the maximal information coefficient) that allows users to search complex data sets in an effort to identify meaningful relationships. Finucane became interested in the application of complex theoretical mathematics to the real world. She returned to the United States in 2012, where she worked toward a doctorate in applied mathematics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She eventually started working with Alkes Price, with whom she developed statistical methods for understanding the genetic basis of human disease. In particular, Finucane considered how specific parts of the genome relate to activity in different cell types, making use of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) to model these relationships.

Research and career Finucane was appointed a Schmidt Fellow at the Broad Institute. She was awarded an National Institutes of Health Independence Award to combine data from ENCODE, the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements, with GWAS and other biological information to better understand the cell types relevant to a particular disease. Soon after joining the Broad Institute, Finucane was made Associate Director of Medical and Population Genetics.

Selected publications Bulik-Sullivan, Brendan K.; Loh, Po-Ru; Finucane, Hilary K.; Ripke, Stephan; Yang, Jian; Patterson, Nick; Daly, Mark J.; Price, Alkes L.; Neale, Benjamin M. (2015). "LD Score regression distinguishes confounding from polygenicity in genome-wide association studies". Nature Genetics. 47 (3): 291–295. doi:10.1038/ng.3211. ISSN 1546-1718. PMC 4495769. PMID 25642630. Finucane, Hilary K.; Bulik-Sullivan, Brendan; Gusev, Alexander; Trynka, Gosia; Reshef, Yakir; Loh, Po-Ru; Anttila, Verneri; Xu, Han; Zang, Chongzhi; Farh, Kyle; Ripke, Stephan (2015). "Partitioning heritability by functional annotation using genome-wide association summary statistics". Nature Genetics. 47 (11): 1228–1235. doi:10.1038/ng.3404. ISSN 1546-1718. PMC 4626285. PMID 26414678. Reshef, David N.; Reshef, Yakir A.; Finucane, Hilary K.; Grossman, Sharon R.; McVean, Gilean; Turnbaugh, Peter J.; Lander, Eric S.; Mitzenmacher, Michael; Sabeti, Pardis C. (2011-12-16). "Detecting Novel Associations in Large Data Sets". Science. 334 (6062): 1518–1524. Bibcode:2011Sci...334.1518R. doi:10.1126/science.1205438. ISSN 0036-8075. PMC 3325791. PMID 22174245.

Personal life Finucane is married to Yakir Reshef, a computer scientist who works on the immune system. She met him during middle school.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Hilary Finucane

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Hilary Finucane claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Hilary Finucane before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Hilary Finucane ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Hilary Finucane

In research: Hilary Finucane appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Hilary Finucane in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Hilary Finucane is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 21st-century American women scientists, Computational biologists, Harvard College alumni, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Hilary Finucane outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Hilary Finucane in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Hilary Finucane means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Hilary Finucane out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Hilary Finucane in simple terms?

Why does Hilary Finucane matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Hilary Finucane?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Hilary Finucane.