Gene Medic was designed and programmed by Jason H. Moore, Ph.D. in 6502 assembly language for the Atari 2600. Dr. Moore is Chair of the Department of Computational Biomedicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center with a research program focused on artificial intelligence and machine learning with application to understanding, preventing, and treating common human diseases. Motivation for this game from a lifelong interest in Atari video game systems and computers as well as a research interest in genomic medicine. Additional motivation came from the significant challenge of coding for the Atari 2600 that has no graphics chip, 128 bytes of RAM, and a code capacity of 4k or less on the ROM in the cartridge. He is also actively involved in Atari 8-bit computers such as the Atari 400 and 800. He maintains the Atari Projects web page to help hobbyists find and complete fun projects for the Atari 8-bit computers and video game consoles. The website has also been edited and published in the Atari Projects book. He is scitari on the Atari Age forums.

Here are some links to more information about Dr. Moore’s research interests.

Accessible artificial intelligence

Automated machine learning

Computational genetics

Biomedical informatics roundtable podcast