Past Lectures

Karen Mohlke, PhD, is professor and associate chair of Genetics and the Oliver Smithies Investigator at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill.

In the past two decades, genome-wide studies have identified thousands of DNA variants associated with risk of type 2 diabetes, obesity and related diseases. Most of these variants are located in noncoding regions of the genome. Integration of genetic variants with genomic data for gene regulation and expression helps identify the variants, genes and mechanisms that lead to disease.

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Soumya Raychaudhuri, MD, PhD, is professor of Medicine and of Biomedical Informatics at Harvard Medical School, and the Coblyn and Brenner Distinguished Chair in Immunology and director, Center for Data Sciences at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. In this lecture, Raychaudhuri, who is also an institute member at the Broad Institute, presents his work mapping risk alleles for autoimmunity and his lab’s efforts to link those alleles to disease mechanisms. Raychaudhuri’s work focuses on rheumatoid arthritis, which is the prototypical autoimmune disease. Risk alleles for rheumatoid arthritis are found inside and outside of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) locus. Alleles within the MHC locus largely map to human leukocyte antigen genes, and Raychaudhuri discusses how these alleles alter the identity of T cells by influencing T cell-receptor sequences. He also discusses other risk alleles and how these alleles alter gene regulation in the cellular context. 

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David Page, MD, is professor of Biology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a Whitehead Institute member and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. The Page lab studies the genetic differences between males and females and the biological and medical ramifications of these differences.  At the core are the sex chromosomes: females have two X chromosomes, while males have an X and a Y. The Page Lab has overturned the long-held view that the influence of sex chromosome constitution (XX vs. XY) is restricted to the reproductive tract. Intrinsic differences between XX and XY cells exist across the body, likely contributing to the pervasive differences that exist between males and females in the incidence, severity, and progression of diseases that collectively affect all organ systems. A grand opportunity awaits: To understand male-female differences in disease by understanding male-female differences in healthy cells, tissues, and organs, at a molecular level and across the body.

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Nancy Cox, PhD is the Mary Phillips Edmonds Gray Professor of Genetics and director of the Vanderbilt Genetics Institute and the Division of Genetic Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. The Cox Laboratory develops methods for analyzing genetic and genomic data and then applies those methods to the analysis of genome data on common diseases and translational phenotypes, such as pharmacogenomics traits. The lab has a particular focus now on the integration of information on genome function with methods for the analysis of genome data on disease and complex traits, including in ancient populations.

Dissolving knowledge gaps that contribute to health care disparities requires adequate inclusions of diverse populations in genomic studies. Olufunmilayo (Funmi) Olopade, MD, FACP, OON, is the Walter L. Palmer Distinguished Service Professor of Medicine and Human Genetics, associate dean for Global Health, and director of the Center for Clinical Cancer Genetics at The University of Chicago. Olopade discussed ongoing research in her group to gain a better understanding of the biological basis of cancer’s heterogeneity across genetic and geographic contexts.

Ulrike Heberlein, PhD, is a senior fellow and laboratory head at the Janelia Research Campus at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Heberlein uses the fruit fly Drosophila as a model organism to study the neural and molecular mechanisms underlying drug abuse and addiction. She discussed the mechanisms by which social experiences and stress affect alcohol behaviors.

Sarah C. R. Elgin, PhD, is the Victor Hamburger Professor of Arts & Sciences, professor of biology and professor of genetics, Washington University in St. Louis and investigator at Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Elgin discussed eukaryotic genomes, which contain high levels of transposable elements (TEs), and their remnants, DNA that is commonly packaged for silencing in heterochromatin. Elgin models how such silencing occurs at the nucleosome level with the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, utilizing an alternative pattern of histone modification with association of heterochromatin-specific proteins, notably HP1.

Nicholas J. Schork, PhD, is director of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Scripps Translational Science Institute, director of Research, Scripps Genomic Medicine, professor of Molecular and Experimental Medicine at The Scripps Research Institute, and adjunct professor of Psychiatry and Biostatistics at the University of California San Diego. Schork described studies that use genomic profiling to further translational research, focusing on the formidable issues of patient genetic background heterogeneity, matching drugs to tumor genomic profiles in real-time clinical trial settings and the utility of personalized therapeutic interventions.

Gail Jarvik, MD, PhD, is head of the Division of Medical Genetics, the Arno G. Motulsky Endowed Chair in Medicine and professor of Genome Sciences at the University of Washington Medical Center. Jarvik discussed emerging issues in clinical genomics, including the return of incidental genomic findings. She also gave an example of the use of genomics to solve the genetic basis of a clinic patient with a novel presentation.

Jonathan S. Weissman, PhD, professor of Cellular & Molecular Pharmacology and Biochemistry & Biophysics, University of California, San Francisco, and investigator at Howard Hughes Medical Institute, discussed the suite of ribosome profiling techniques developed by his laboratory that dramatically expand the ability to follow translation in vivo.

Thomas Cech, PhD, is distinguished professor at University of Colorado-Boulder, director of the Colorado Initiative in Molecular Biotechnology and investigator at Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Cech discussed his laboratory’s research on large noncoding RNAs, where catalysis is carried out by ribonucleoproteins. He described recent research on telomerase and its interaction with chromosome ends.

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Ronald Evans, PhD, is professor and March of Dimes chair, Molecular and Developmental Biology, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, and investigator at Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Evans shared his current research on the genetic basis of obesity-related diseases, including diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and insulin resistance.

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Matthew Scott, PhD, is professor of Developmental Biology, Genetics and Bioengineering at Stanford University School of Medicine, and investigator at Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Craig Mello, PhD, is the Blais University chair in Molecular Medicine, University of Massachusetts Medical School, and investigator at Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

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Susan Lindquist, PhD is a member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and professor in the Department of Biology at MIT. Lindquist is a pioneer in the study of protein folding. She has shown that changes in protein folding can have profound and unexpected influences in fields as wide-ranging as human disease, evolution and nanotechnology.

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David Altshuler, MD, PhD, is associate professor of Genetics and Medicine at Harvard Medical School and director of the Program in Medical and Population Genetics at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT.

Richard Lifton, MD, PhD, is chair of Genetics and Professor of Internal Medicine, Genetics, Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University School of Medicine and investigator at Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

David Botstein, PhD, is the Anthony B. Evnin Professor of Genomics and director of Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics at Princeton University.

Aravinda Chakravarti, PhD, is a professor and the director of the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Chakravarti’s research is aimed at genomic-scale analysis of the human genome and understanding the molecular genetic basis of common genetic disorders using contemporary genomic tools.

Patrick Brown, MD, PhD, is a professor of Biochemistry at Stanford University School of Medicine and investigator at Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Brown led the development of DNA microarrays, or "gene chip" technology.