Stephen Edwards is a Bioinformatics Senior Scientist within the GenOmics, Bioinformatics, and Translational Research Center at RTI International in Research Triangle Park, N.C. Dr. Edwards has more than 25 years of experience in pharmacology and toxicology across academia, government, and industry. For the past 20 years, he has focused on using computational approaches to better understand the mechanisms underlying disease and highlight interventions that could improve human health. His current research examines the combined impact of genetic and environmental factors on disease manifestation to better support both precision medicine and public health protection. Dr. Edwards received his bachelor of science in chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his doctorate in pharmacology from Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Prior to joining RTI International, Dr. Edwards was a systems biologist at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In this role, he used computational approaches to describe the mechanisms by which chemicals cause disease in a wide variety of species. This work served as the basis for interpretation of high-throughput toxicity test results allowing thousands of chemicals per week to be screened for toxicity potential. Before joining EPA, Dr. Edwards worked in the pharmaceutical industry where he led a target discovery team focused on novel diabetes targets. The team used biological networks built from genetics and gene expression data to identify potential diabetes targets, which were subsequently nominated for the Merck high throughput screening program.