Brian Shirts, M.D., Ph.D. UW Assistant Professor, Laboratory Medicine. New Investigator Lecture: "Extreme Personalized Medicine: Building Understanding of Family Specific-Variation" Personalized medicine seeks to tailor medical decisions to individuals, especially based on genetic information. In the era of large-scale genetic testing we have found that everyone has extremely rare genetic variants unique to their own family. When found in medically important genes these rare variants may or may not require changing medical treatment. Dr. Brian Shirts, M.D., Ph.D. is a molecular genetic pathologist in the Department of Laboratory Medicine at the University of Washington whose research focuses on understanding rare inherited genetic causes of adult-onset disease. Dr. Shirts’ presentation will cover statistical and philosophical issues surrounding interpretation of family-specific variants. He will give examples established and new approaches to build evidence that can lead to changing medical care based on the observation of a rare genetic variant. For more information or with questions about the event please contact the Office of Research and Graduate Education at somevent@uw.edu or call 206.221.5807. |