Ground-breaking geneticist Mary Claire King, PhD will give the 2019 MaryFran Sowers Memorial Lecture. Dr. King is American Cancer Society Professor of Medical Genetics and Genome Sciences, Department of Medicine, Division of Medical Genetics, University of Washington. Dr. King studies the genetic causes of serious human disorders including breast and ovarian cancer and schizophrenia. She focuses on disentangling genetic heterogeneity in complex traits, and on discovering rare alleles that cause common disorders. Her doctoral dissertation demonstrated that chimpanzees and humans are 99 percent genetically identical, transforming evolutionary biology. She demonstrated the genetic inheritance of breast cancer, mapping the BRCA1 gene to chromosome 17q21, using linkage analysis to prove the existence of a major gene for a complex trait. Her laboratory developed and patented a targeted capture and massively parallel sequencing approach (BROCA) that detects mutations in breast and ovarian cancer genes. Dr. King also has pioneered the development of genomics tools for human rights investigations. She developed mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequencing to match kidnapped children to possible maternal relatives, helping to reunite 130 families following the murder of their parents by the Argentinian dictatorship of 1975-1983. Her approach is now used by governmental and United Nations forensic teams worldwide to identify remains of victims of extra-judicial execution and missing soldiers. Dr. King received her BA cum laude in Mathematics from Carleton College in Minnesota, her PhD in Genetics from the University of California at Berkeley, and her postdoctoral training at UC San Francisco. She was a professor at UC Berkeley from 1976-1995 and has been the American Cancer Society Professor of Medical Genetics and Genome Sciences at the University of Washington since 1995. She is a member of the National Academy of Medicine (1994), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1999), and the National Academy of Sciences (2005). She i a past President of the American Society of Human Genetics. Among her many honors, she was awarded the Lasker~Koshland Special Achievement Award in Medical Science in 2014 and the National Medal of Science in 2016 and the Advocacy Award from the American Society of Human Genetics in 2018.
A reception, sponsored by UM Precision Health, will immediately follow the lecture.
Center for Midlife Science, Department of EpidemiologyInherited Breast and Ovarian Cancer: From Gene Discovery to Precision Medicine and Public Health
2019 MaryFran Sowers Memorial Lecture with Keynote speaker Mary-Claire King, PhD (University of Washington)
September 19, 2019
4:00 - 5:30 pm Reception immediately following lecture
M1020 SPH II
1415 Washington Heights
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2029
Sponsored by: Center for Midlife Science, Department of Epidemiology
Contact Information: Meredith McGehee (mcgehee@umich.edu | 647-0819)
Ground-breaking geneticist Mary Claire King, PhD will give the 2019 MaryFran Sowers Memorial Lecture. Dr. King is American Cancer Society Professor of Medical Genetics and Genome Sciences, Department of Medicine, Division of Medical Genetics, University of Washington. Dr. King studies the genetic causes of serious human disorders including breast and ovarian cancer and schizophrenia. She focuses on disentangling genetic heterogeneity in complex traits, and on discovering rare alleles that cause common disorders. Her doctoral dissertation demonstrated that chimpanzees and humans are 99 percent genetically identical, transforming evolutionary biology. She demonstrated the genetic inheritance of breast cancer, mapping the BRCA1 gene to chromosome 17q21, using linkage analysis to prove the existence of a major gene for a complex trait. Her laboratory developed and patented a targeted capture and massively parallel sequencing approach (BROCA) that detects mutations in breast and ovarian cancer genes. Dr. King also has pioneered the development of genomics tools for human rights investigations. She developed mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequencing to match kidnapped children to possible maternal relatives, helping to reunite 130 families following the murder of their parents by the Argentinian dictatorship of 1975-1983. Her approach is now used by governmental and United Nations forensic teams worldwide to identify remains of victims of extra-judicial execution and missing soldiers. Dr. King received her BA cum laude in Mathematics from Carleton College in Minnesota, her PhD in Genetics from the University of California at Berkeley, and her postdoctoral training at UC San Francisco. She was a professor at UC Berkeley from 1976-1995 and has been the American Cancer Society Professor of Medical Genetics and Genome Sciences at the University of Washington since 1995. She is a member of the National Academy of Medicine (1994), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1999), and the National Academy of Sciences (2005). She i a past President of the American Society of Human Genetics. Among her many honors, she was awarded the Lasker~Koshland Special Achievement Award in Medical Science in 2014 and the National Medal of Science in 2016 and the Advocacy Award from the American Society of Human Genetics in 2018.
A reception, sponsored by UM Precision Health, will immediately follow the lecture.