HEEWON SEO, MSc, PhD

    Lead Bioinformatician
    Applied Spatial Omics Centre
    Cumming School of Medicine
    University of Calgary

    Heewon.Seo@ucalgary.ca
    Curriculum Vitae as of May 10, 2025
    Projects Reports
    GitHub
    Numismous

    Lead Bioinformatician
    Applied Spatial Omics Centre
    Cumming School of Medicine
    University of Calgary

    Heewon.Seo@ucalgary.ca
    Curriculum Vitae
    Projects Reports
    GitHub
    Numismous


BIO

    Heewon studied at Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea, where he earned an MSc and PhD in Biomedical Informatics. During his PhD, he utilized next-generation sequencing for variant- and gene-based analysis, to identify genomic variants that are associated with drug-induced side effects. Heewon continued his research as a postdoctoral fellow at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto, Canada, where he developed a translational framework for precision oncology using a compendium of preclinical pharmacogenomics datasets focused on drug combination therapies to improve current treatment strategies. Heewon is currently a Lead Bioinformatician at the Applied Spatial Omics Centre, Cumming School of Medicine, at the University of Calgary. His current research interests include profiling spatial gene/protein expression for prioritizing drugs based on microenvironment signatures for better therapeutic outcomes and building molecular classifier for predicting patients prognosis.

EDUCATION

  • Doctor of Philosophy in Medical Science (2018)
    Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea
    Dissertation: Methods for Variant- and Gene-based Analysis for Pharmacogenomics Research.
  • Master of Science in Medicine (2012)
    Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea
    Thesis: Loss of Function Gene-set Analysis of Personal Genome using Pathway-Disease Similarity.
  • Bachelor of Science in Computer Science (2010)
    Sejong University, Seoul, Korea
    Summa cum laude, Three-year graduation

EXPERIENCE

  • Lead Bioinformatician (Jan 2024–present)
    Applied Spatial Omics Centre, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada
  • Bioinformatician (Nov 2020–Dec 2023)
    Arnie Charbonneau Cancer Institute, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada
  • Visiting Researcher (Jan 2018–Oct 2020)
    Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, Toronto, ON, Canada
  • Postdoctoral Fellow (Jan 2018–Oct 2020)
    Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network, Toronto, ON, Canada

RESEARCH INTERESTS

  • Biomedical informatics
  • Spatial transcriptomics
  • Translational genomics
  • Computational pharmacology
  • Statistical genetics

SKILLS

  • High-level languages : C/C++
  • Scripting languages : R, Python, javascript, PHP, and HTML
  • Structured query languages (SQL) : MySQL, MariaDB, and NoSQL (MongoDB)
  • Operating system : Good working knowledge of Linux and MacOS
  • Adobe products : Illustrator, Photoshop, and Premiere Pro

PUBLICATIONS

† : (co-) First author, *: (co-) Corresponding author

  1. Evaluating Gene Representation in Spatial Transcriptomics across Pre-Designed Panels.
    Heewon Seo*, Roman Krawetz
    bioRxiv 2025 DOI: 10.1101/2025.04.07.647642 | View PDF
  2. Impaired Parvalbumin Interneurons in the Retrosplenial Cortex as the Cause of Sex-dependent Vulnerability in Alzheimer’s Disease.
    Dylan J. Terstege†, Yi Ren, Bo Young Ahn, Heewon Seo, Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, Liisa A. M. Galea, Derya Sargin, Jonathan R. Epp*
    Sci Adv 2025;11(18):eadt8976 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adt8976 | PMID: 40305608
  3. CD73 Inhibits cGAS-STING and Cooperates with CD39 to Promote Pancreatic Cancer.
    Célia Jacoberger-Foissac†, Isabelle Cousineau†, Yacine Bareche†, David Allard, Pavel Chrobak, Bertrand Allard, Sandra Pommey, Nouredin Messaoudi, Geneviève Soucy, Secil Koseoglu, Ricard Masia, Andrew C. Lake, Heewon Seo, Christopher B. Eeles, Neha Rohatgi, Simon C. Robson, Simon Turcotte, Benjamin Haibe-Kains, John Stagg*
    Cancer Immunol Res 2023;11(1):56-71 DOI: 10.1158/2326-6066.CIR-22-0260 | PMID: 36409930
  4. Orchestrating and Sharing Large Multimodal Data for Transparent and Reproducible Research.
    Anthony Mammoliti†, Petr Smirnov, Minoru Nakano, Zhaleh Safikhani, Christopher Eeles, Heewon Seo, Sisira Kadambat Nair, Ian Smith, Chantal Ho, Gangesh Beri, Rebecca Kusko, Eva Lin, Yihong Yu, Scott Martin, Marc Hafner, Benjamin Haibe-Kains*
    Nat Commun 2021;12(1):5797 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-25974-w | PMID: 34608132
  5. CaReAl: Capturing Read Alignments in a BAM file Rapidly and Conveniently.
    Yoomi Park†, Heewon Seo†, Kyunghun Yoo, Ju Han Kim*
    J Big Data 2021;8:23 DOI: 10.1186/s40537-021-00418-w | View PDF
  6. Identifying Genetic Variants Associated with Ritodrine-induced Pulmonary Edema.
    Seung Mi Lee†, Yoomi Park†, Young Ju Kim, Han-Sung Hwang, Heewon Seo, Byung-Joo Min, Kye Hwa Lee, So Yeon Kim, Young Mi Jung, Suehyun Lee, Chan-Wook Park, Ju Han Kim*, Joong Shin Park*
    PLoS One 2020;15(11):e0241215 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0241215 | PMID: 33166306
  7. Homozygote CRIM1 Variant is Associated with Thiopurine-induced Neutropenia in Leukemic Patients with both Wildtype NUDT15 and TPMT.
    Yoomi Park†, Hyery Kim†, Heewon Seo, Jung Yoon Choi, Youngeun Ma, Sunmin Yun, Byung-Joo Min, Myung-Eui Seo, Keon Hee Yoo, Hyoung Jin Kang, Ho Joon Im, Ju Han Kim*
    J TRANSL MED 2020;18(1):265 DOI: 10.1186/s12967-020-02416-7 | PMID: 32611418
  8. Gene-wise Variant Burden and Genomic Characterization of Nearly Every Gene.
    Yoomi Park†, Heewon Seo, Brian Ryu, Ju Han Kim*
    Pharmacogenomics 2020;21(12):827-840 DOI: 10.2217/pgs-2020-0039 | PMID: 32700635
  9. SYNERGxDB: an Integrative Pharmacogenomic Portal to Identify Synergistic Drug Combinations for Precision Oncology.
    Heewon Seo†, Denis Tkachuk, Chantal Ho, Anthony Mammoliti, Aria Rezaie, Seyed Ali Madani Tonekaboni, Benjamin Haibe-Kains*
    Nucleic Acids Res 2020;48(W1):W494-W501 DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkaa421 | PMID: 32442307
  10. ToxicoDB: an Integrated Database to Mine and Visualize Large-scale Toxicogenomic Datasets.
    Sisira Kadambat Nair†, Christopher Eeles, Chantal Ho, Gangesh Beri, Esther Yoo, Denis Tkachuk, Amy Tang, Parwaiz Nijrabi, Petr Smirnov, Heewon Seo, Danyel Jennen, Benjamin Haibe-Kains*
    Nucleic Acids Res 2020;48(W1):W455-W462 DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkaa390 | PMID: 32421831
  11. Discovery of Donor Genotype Associated with Long-term Survival of Patients with Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation in Refractory Acute Myeloid Leukemia.
    Chan-Young Ock†, Heewon Seo†, Dae-Yoon Kim, Byung Joo Min, Yoomi Park, Hyun Sub Cheong, Eun-Young Song, Inho Kim, Sung-Soo Yoon, Ju Han Kim*, Youngill Koh*
    Leuk Lymphoma 2018;60(7):1775-1781 DOI: 10.1080/10428194.2018.1542142 | PMID: 30507323
  12. Deleterious Genetic Variants in Ciliopathy Genes Increase Risk of Ritodrine-induced Cardiac and Pulmonary Side Effects.
    Heewon Seo†, Eun Jin Kwon†, Young-Ah You, Yoomi Park, Byung Joo Min, Kyunghun Yoo, Han Sung Hwang, Ju Han Kim*, Young Ju Kim*
    BMC Med Genomics 2018;11(1):4 DOI: 10.1186/s12920-018-0323-4 | PMID: 29368655
  13. APEX1 Polymorphism and Mercaptopurine-related Early Onset Neutropenia in Pediatric Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia.
    Hyery Kim†, Heewon Seo†, Yoomi Park, Byung Joo Min, Myung Eui Seo, Kyung Duk Park, Hee Young Shin, Ju Han Kim*, Hyoung Jin Kang*
    Cancer Res Treat 2018;50(3):823-834 DOI: 10.4143/crt.2017.351 | PMID: 28882023
  14. Idiopathic Hypereosinophilia Is Clonal Disorder? Clonality Identified by Targeted Sequencing.
    Jee-Soo Lee†, Heewon Seo, Kyongok Im, Si Nae Park, Sung-Min Kim, Jung-Ah Kim, Seon Young Kim, Joon-hee Lee, Sunghoon Kwon, Miyoung Kim, Insong Koh, Heung-Woo Park, Ju Han Kim, Dong Soon Lee*
    PLoS One 2017;12(10):e0185602 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0185602 | PMID: 29088303
  15. Evaluation of Exome Variants using the Ion Proton Platform to Sequence Error-Prone Regions.
    Heewon Seo†, Yoomi Park†, Byung Joo Min, Myung Eui Seo, Ju Han Kim*
    PLoS One 2017;12(7):e0181304 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0181304 | PMID: 28742110
  16. Posttranslational Control of T-cell Development by the ESCRT protein CHMP5.
    Stanley Adoro†, Kwang H Park, Sarah E Bettigole, Raphael Lis, Hee Rae Shin, Heewon Seo, Ju Han Kim, Klaus-Peter Knobeloch, Jae-Hyuck Shim*, Laurie H. Glimcher*
    Nat Immunol 2017;18(7):780-790 DOI: 10.1038/ni.3764 | PMID: 28553951
  17. Markers of Disease and Steroid Responsiveness in Paediatric Idiopathic Nephrotic Syndrome: Whole-transcriptome Sequencing of Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells.
    Hee Gyung Kang†, Heewon Seo†, Jae Hyun Lim, Jong Il Kim, Kyoung Hee Han, Hey Won Park, Ja Wook Koo, Kee Hyuck Kim, Ju Han Kim*, Hae Il Cheong, Il-Soo Ha*
    J Int Med Res 2017;45(3):948-963 DOI: 10.1177/0300060516652762 | PMID: 28639503
  18. Gastrointestinal Tuberculosis is not Associated with Proton Pump Inhibitors: A Retrospective Cohort Study.
    Kyoung Sup Hong†, Seung Joo Kang, Jong Kyoung Choi, Ju Han Kim, Heewon Seo, Suehyun Lee, Jae-Woo Jung, Hye-Ryun Kang, Sang-Heon Cho, Joo Sung Kim*
    World J Gastroenterol 2013;19(2):258-264 DOI: 10.3748/wjg.v19.i2.258 | PMID: 23345949
  19. Development of Korean Rare Disease Knowledge Base.
    Heewon Seo†, Dokyoon Kim, Jong-Hee Chae, Hee Gyung Kang, Buyng Chan Lim, Hae Il Cheong, Ju Han Kim*
    Healthc Inform Res 2012;18(04):272-278 DOI: 10.4258/hir.2012.18.4.272 | PMID: 23346478