Biography: Dr. Sylvain Costes is a Professor at the University of Pittsburgh, in the Computational and Systems Biology Department and the Radiation Oncology Department. He is also the director of the Center for Space Biomanufacturing, Synthetic Biology and digital health at the Trivedi Institute for Space and Global Biomedicine in Pitt. He is also the Chief Data and AI Officer at Vizzhy Inc., a biomedical AI company partnering with Pitt and specializing in the development of digital twin technology for predictive health, early risk detection, and precision therapeutics, utilizing multi-omics, imaging, wearable, and electronic health record (EHR) data. At Vizzhy, he leads the development of AI systems, databases, and federated platforms for integrating diverse biomedical datasets to advance personalized medicine and precision health.
Before joining Pitt/Vizzhy, Dr. Costes spent nine years at NASA (2016–2025), where he most recently served as the Data Officer for NASA’s Biological and Physical Sciences (BPS) Division under the Science Mission Directorate (SMD).
He earned his Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, specializing in radiation biology. His postdoctoral work in the Mathematics Department at UC Berkeley focused on modeling gene deletions from ionizing radiation. He then joined the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in Frederick, Maryland, where he developed spatial statistics algorithms to quantify protein-protein interactions in cells. At Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), he modeled cancer risks for NASA’s Human Research Program. He developed biomarkers for the Department of Energy’s Low Dose Radiation Research Program, while managing a bioinformatics lab supporting high-throughput imaging, agent-based modeling, and genomics.
In 2012, he co-founded Exogen Biotechnology Inc., a startup spun out of LBNL, which used DNA damage analysis for personal health monitoring and cancer risk assessment.
During his time at NASA, Dr. Costes led Open Science initiatives, serving as Project Manager for platforms such as the GeneLab Omics repository and the ALSDA repository for physiological data.
From 2022 to 2024, he was a Subject Matter Expert on the Data & Innovation Task Force at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), contributing to federal efforts in open science, data standards, and responsible AI. He also served as Branch Chief for the Space Biosciences Research Branch from 2020 to 2024.
Dr. Costes continues to drive biomedical AI innovation through large-scale, privacy-preserving systems that integrate omics, clinical, and behavioral data, serving applications in both terrestrial healthcare and human spaceflight.