Megan Allyse, PhD
Mayo Clinic
Jacksonville, FL
Panagiotis Anastasiadis, PhD
Mayo Clinic
Jacksonville, FL
Jennifer Anderson, MS, CGC
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, MN
Yan Asmann, PhD
Mayo Clinic
Jacksonville, FL
Arjun Athreya, PhD, MS
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, MN
Veronique Belzil, PhD, MS
Mayo Clinic
Jacksonville, FL
Corinne Berg, MSN, RN
Mayo Clinic
Jacksonville, FL
William Bobo, MD, MPH
Mayo Clinic
Jacksonville, FL
Vence Bonham, Jr., JD
National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI)
Bethesda, MD
Mitesh Borad, MD
Mayo Clinic
Scottsdale, AZ
Antonella Santuccione Chadha, MD
Women’s Brain Project
Basel, Switzerland
Nicholas Chia, PhD
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, MN
Murthy Devarakonda, PhD
Novartis
Cambridge, MA
Radhika Dhamija, MBBS
Mayo Clinic
Scottsdale, AZ
Bradley Erickson, MD, PhD
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, MN
DeLisa Fairweather, PhD
Mayo Clinic
Jacksonville, FL
Stephanie Faubion, MD, MBA
Mayo Clinic
Jacksonville, FL
Matthew Ferber, PhD
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, MN
Rafael Fonseca, MD
Mayo Clinic
Scottsdale, AZ
Robert Freimuth, PhD
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, MN
Christian Jobin, PhD
University of Florida
Gainesville, FL
Thomas Hemming
Karlsen, MD, PhD
Oslo University Hospital
Oslo, Norway
Adrijana Kekic, PharmD
Mayo Clinic
Scottsdale, AZ
Mira Keddis, MD
Mayo Clinic
Scottsdale, AZ
Muin Khoury, MD, PhD
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Atlanta, GA
Eric Klee, PhD
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, MN
Teresa
Kruisselbrink, MS, CGC
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, MN
Konstantinos Lazaridis, MD
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, MN
Minetta Liu, MD
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, MN
Elizabeth Mauricio, MD
Mayo Clinic
Jacksonville, FL
Christopher
McLeod, MB, ChB, PhD
Mayo Clinic
Jacksonville, FL
Eva Morava-Kozicz, MD, PhD
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, MN
Ann Moyer, MD, PhD
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, MN
Robert Nussbaum, MD
Invitae
San Francisco, CA
Akhilesh Pandey, MD, PhD
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, MN
Richard Presutti, DO
Mayo Clinic
Jacksonville, FL
Hong Qin, MD, PhD
Mayo Clinic
Jacksonville, FL
Owen Ross, PhD
Mayo Clinic
Jacksonville, FL
Jewel Samadder, MD
Mayo Clinic
Scottsdale, AZ
Gina Suh, MD
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, MN
Nilüfer Taner, MD, PhD
Mayo Clinic
Jacksonville, FL
George Vasmatzis, PhD
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, MN
Michael Wallace, MD
Mayo Clinic, Sheikh Shakhbout Medical City
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Marina Walther-Antonio, PhD
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, MN
Liewei Wang, MD, PhD
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, MN
Klaas Wierenga, MD
Mayo Clinic
Jacksonville, FL
Stacey Winham, PhD
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, MN
Sharon Zehe, JD
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, MN
Associate Professor
Department of Biomedical Ethics Research Program
Mayo Clinic
Jacksonville, Florida
Dr. Megan Allyse is an associate consultant in the Department of Quantitative Health Sciences at Mayo Clinic, and is an associate professor in the Biomedical Research Ethics Program with a joint appointment in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.
Dr. Allyse is an empirical bioethicist with a focus on issues around reproductive ethics, women’s health, and health disparities in access to care, specifically in genetic and stem cell technologies. She also has an interest on the impact of novel genetic technologies on patients, families, and communities. Dr. Allyse has extensive research and publications on the clinical translation of noninvasive prenatal genetic screening. Through her research, she directly impacts patient care at Mayo Clinic by collaborating with providers to measure and improve the provision of prenatal and preconception genetic services.
Dr. Allyse earned her Doctor of Philosophy in sociology and social policy from the University of Nottingham in 2010. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the Stanford University Medical Center, where she researched and analyzed the ethical, legal and social implications of genetic technologies, particularly the policy and legal implications of morally controversial technologies.
Consultant in Department of Cancer Biology, Professor of Cancer Biology
Mayo Clinic Cancer Center, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine
Jacksonville, Florida
Dr. Panagiotis Anastasiadis is a consultant in the Department of Cancer Biology in the Mayo Clinic Cancer Center and a professor of cancer biology in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.
His research focuses on explaining the role of cadherin adhesion receptors, polarity proteins and Rho GTPases in human cancer. Specifically, his team is investigating adhesion-mediated signaling events that regulate cell growth, suppress cell motility and invasiveness, and promote the reorganization of the actin cytoskeleton. His research goal is to translate a better understanding of cell motility and invasiveness into targeting therapeutic treatments that block invasiveness and metastasis in cancer patients.
Dr. Anastasiadis earned his Doctor of Philosophy in cellular and clinical neurobiology at Wayne State University. He completed postgraduate training in neurobiology at Henry Ford Hospital and cancer cell biology at Vanderbilt University.
Genetic Counselor
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, Minnesota
Ms. Jennifer Anderson is a lead genetic counselor for the Mayo Clinic Predictive Genomics Clinic.
Recently, Ms. Anderson and her colleagues published an article researching the presence of clinically actionable results and other genetic findings in healthy adults who were offered “predictive” genomic testing. The research examined the influence of predictive genomic services in medical practice.
Ms. Anderson earned her Bachelor of Arts in psychology and biology at Winona State University where she was an undergraduate research assistant in the Neurobiology of Disease lab. Subsequently, she completed her Master of Science in genetic counseling at Ohio State University.
Associate Professor of BioMedical Informatics
Department of Quantitative Health Sciences
Mayo Clinic
Jacksonville, Florida
Dr. Yan Asmann is a bioinformatician, data scientist, associate professor of biomedical informatics and consultant in Quantitative Health Sciences at Mayo Clinic in Florida.
The focus of her research includes developing analytical algorithms and frameworks to study complex disorders and to identify diagnostic/prognostic biomarkers and therapeutic targets. Dr. Asmann's main areas of interest include: 1) multi-omics data integration to study disease etiology, staging, prognoses, and treatments; 2) cancer neoantigen identification and prioritization for neoantigen directed immunotherapies; 3) machine learning and deep learning models to discover novel therapy options and to predict therapy outcomes. She hopes her research will enable the discovery, validation and clinical application of genomic biomarkers and therapeutic targets in the era of individualized medicine.
Dr. Asmann received her Doctor of Philosophy in biochemistry and molecular biology from the Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences and a Certificate in bioinformatics in comparative genomics from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Assistant Professor
Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, Minnesota
Dr. Arjun Athreya is a principal data scientist, associate consultant in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, and assistant professor of pharmacology in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.
Dr. Athreya is a leader and expert in developing technologies in artificial intelligence and machine learning. His research and technologies dramatically minimize guessing in the trial-and-error practice of treating patients by using artificial intelligence and high volumes of patient data to optimize treatment selection and treatment management specific to the patient. This augments physicians’ decision-making abilities, decreasing the risk of treatment failures that bring added disease burden to patients.
Dr. Athreya received his Doctor of Philosophy in computer engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Later, he became a research fellow at Mayo Clinic, where he collaborated to build learning methods and models for analyzing clinical data.
Cecilia and Dan Carmichael Family Associate Director, Center for Individualized Medicine
Director for High-Definition Therapeutics, Center for Individualized Medicine
Mayo Clinic
Jacksonville, Florida
Dr. Sanjay Bagaria is director for High-Definition Therapeutics, associate director of the Center for Individualized Medicine, consultant in the Department of Surgery and professor of surgery in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.
Dr. Bagaria has completed extensive research using preclinical models and advanced genomic sequencing techniques to better identify immune and targeted therapeutics for advanced malignancies. A few of his research interests include sarcoma, melanoma, and hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy. Dr. Bagaria uses genomic sequencing technology to study the tumor and tumor microenvironment of sarcoma, peritoneal surface malignancies, and melanoma. His long-term research goal is to develop locoregional therapies that can prevent and eradicate these tumors.
Dr. Bagaria earned his Doctor of Medicine at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. He completed residency in general surgery and a post-doctoral fellowship in genetic medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College. Subsequently, he completed a surgical oncology fellowship at the John Wayne Cancer Institute.
Assistant Professor
Department of Neuroscience
Mayo Clinic
Jacksonville, Florida
Dr. Veronique Belzil is an associate consultant in the Department of Molecular Neuroscience and an assistant professor of neuroscience in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.
She focuses on developing individualized approaches to treating amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD), and other related neurodegenerative diseases by identifying and characterizing genetic, epigenetic and transcriptional changes to better understand the complex etiology, heterogeneous clinical presentation, comorbid conditions, and multifaceted environmental interaction in patients. Another one of her research focuses is developing therapeutic approaches using gene delivery, gene silencing, gene editing, and RNA interference methods in patient-derived cell lines.
Dr. Belzil earned her Doctor of Philosophy in neuroscience at the University of Montreal. She completed her post-doctoral training at Mayo Clinic.
Registered Nurse, Center for Individualized Medicine
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, Minnesota
Ms. Corinne Berg is a registered nurse in Mayo Clinic's Center for Individualized Medicine.
In her current role, she and her team collaborate to discover, translate and apply new individualized medicine tools and services across the three sites of Mayo Clinic. Mrs. Berg works with genetic counselors and other health professionals to provide services in a variety of clinical and research settings. She and her team focus on providing predictive genomic services to healthy individuals and are returning genetic testing results to participants across many research studies. She is passionate about patient and nursing education surrounding genetics, genomics and cancer risks. Mrs. Berg is proud to be part of a team that increases access to genomics and genetic counseling by providing a nurse-genetic counselor care model.
Mrs. Berg received her Bachelor of Science in nursing from Augsburg College and Master of Science in nursing education from Western Governors University.
Senior Fellow
George W. Bush Institute
Dallas, Texas
Deborah L. Birx, M.D., has spent her first career serving the United States, as an Army Colonel and later, running some of the most high-profile and influential programs at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and U.S. Department of State. Most recently, Dr. Birx served as the White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator, where she made recommendations to the Vice President using complex data integration to drive decision-making, as well as worked closely with state officials across the country to provide state-specific advice and guidance. In 2014, Dr. Birx became an Ambassador-at-Large, when she assumed the role of the Coordinator of the United States Government Activities to Combat HIV/AIDS and U.S. Special Representative for Global Health Diplomacy. Dr. Birx is a world-renowned medical expert and leader whose long career has focused on clinical and basic immunology, infectious disease, pandemic preparedness, vaccine research, and global health. As the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator, she oversaw the spending of the $6 billion annual budget of the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the largest commitment by any nation to combat a single disease in history, as well as all U.S. Government engagement with the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
She is dedicated to program improvement and change management to increase the health impact of every dollar spent; she has spent a lifetime mentoring young women in the Federal Government and translating science into effective implementation.
Consultant, Professor of Psychiatry
Department of Psychiatry & Psychology
Mayo Clinic
Jacksonville, Florida
Dr. William Bobo is a consultant and professor of psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry & Psychology at Mayo Clinic in Florida.
Some of his research interests include examining and predicting the clinical effects of medications used to treat people with severe mood disorders. His research examines the effects of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs) on vulnerable populations, and applies artificial intelligence and other advanced computational approaches to health care.
Dr. Bobo earned his Doctor of Medicine at the University of Missouri – Columbia School of Medicine. He completed his residency in psychiatry at the National Capital Consortium: Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC) and the National Naval Medical Center (NNMC). Dr. Bobo continued to complete his master’s in public health at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.
Associate Investigator, Senior Advisor to the NHGRI Director of Genomics and Health Disparities
National Human Genome Research Institute
Bethesda, Maryland
Mr. Vence Bonham is the senior advisor to the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) on genomics and health disparities.
Mr. Bonham leads the Health Disparities Unit, which investigates the equitable integration of new genomic knowledge and precision medicine into clinical settings. His research focuses on the social implications of new genomic knowledge, how genomics influences the use of the constructs of race and ethnicity in biomedical research, and the role of genomics in exacerbating or ameliorating health inequities.
Mr. Bonham received his bachelor’s degree from Michigan State University and his Doctor of Jurisprudence from the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University.
Assistant Professor of Medicine, Consultant in the Division of Hematology/Oncology
Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine
Mayo Clinic
Phoenix, Arizona
Dr. Mitesh Borad is a consultant in the Division of Hematology/Oncology in the Department of Internal Medicine at Mayo Clinic in Arizona and an associate professor in Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.
Most of Dr. Borad’s research interests include Phase I drug development, pancreatic cancer, biliary cancer, liver cancer, genomic/novel clinical trial designs, and rare cancers.
Dr. Borad earned his Doctor of Medicine at Rutgers University. Subsequently, he completed his residency in internal medicine at Cedars – Sinai Medical Center and a fellowship in Medical Oncology at Tulane University.
Co-Founder, CEO
Women’s Brain Project
Basel, Switzerland
Dr. Antonella Chadha is a co-founder and CEO of the non-profit organization “Women’s Brain Project.” The organization addresses the influence of sex and gender on mental and brain diseases.
Dr. Chadha is interested in removing bias when developing solutions for mental and neurological diseases to achieve precision medicine. She has expertise in clinical pathology, neuroscience and psychiatric disorders. In 2018 and 2019, she was nominated among the top 100 Women in Business in Switzerland. In 2019, she was elected Woman of the Year in Switzerland by the Magazine “Women in Business”. In 2020, she received the World Sustainability Award.
Dr. Chadha received her Doctor of Medicine from the University of Zurich.
Co-Director of the Microbiome Program, Director of the Beyond DNA Theme
Center for Individualized Medicine
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, Minnesota
Dr. Nicholas Chia is a Bernard and Edith Waterman Co-Director of the Microbiome Program director of the Beyond DNA Theme in the Center for Individualized Medicine. He is a senior associate consultant in the Department of Surgery with a joint appointment in Health Sciences Research. He is an associate professor in the Departments of Surgery and Laboratory Medicine and Pathology. Dr. Chia also serves as an adjunct professor of Biomedical Informatics and Computational Biology at the University of Minnesota Rochester.
His research contributions reflect his expertise in generating novel insights for understanding complex systems. His lab focuses on colorectal cancer and the microbiome- a complex system of interactions that cross genomic, epigenomic, and environmental scales.
Dr. Chia received his Doctor of Philosophy in physics from Ohio State University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Chief Executive Officer
All of Us Research Program
National Institutes of Health
Bethesda, Maryland
Dr. Joshua Denny is the chief executive officer of the National Institutes of Health’s All of Us Research Program.
Dr. Denny has been involved in All of Us from its inception, first as a member of the Advisory Committee to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Precision Medicine Initiative Working Group, which developed the program’s initial scientific blueprint. As a physician scientist, Dr. Denny is committed to improving patient care through the advancement of precision medicine.
His research interests include use of electronic health records (EHRs) and genomics to better understand disease and drug response. Before joining the NIH, Dr. Denny was a professor of biomedical informatics and medicine, director of the Center for Precision Medicine, and vice president for personalized medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, the American Society for Clinical Investigation, and the American College of Medical Informatics.
Dr. Denny received his Doctor of Medicine from Vanderbilt University. He subsequently completed an internal medicine residency as a Tinsley Harrison Scholar, also at Vanderbilt University.
Senior Associate Consultant
Department of Clinical Genomics, Department of Neurology
Mayo Clinic
Phoenix, Arizona
Dr. Radhika Dhamija is a clinical geneticist and neurologist with interests in neurology, neuro genetics, rate genetic diseases, whole exome sequencing, and genetic counseling. She is a consultant in the Department of Clinical Genomics and an associate professor of medical genetics and assistant professor of neurology in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.
She earned her Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery at All India Institute of Medical Sciences and completed a residency in pediatrics at Kalamazoo Center for Medical Studies at Michigan State University. She also completed a fellowship in medical genetics and a residency in child and adolescent neurology at Mayo Clinic School of Graduate Medical Education.
Medical Director for AI
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, Minnesota
Dr. Bradley Erickson is the medical director of Artificial Intelligence (AI) at Mayo Clinic, a consultant in the Department of Radiology, and a professor of radiology in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.
In his role as medical director of AI, Dr. Erickson works with numerous internal and external stakeholders to act as a centralized resource for AI thought leadership, education, building and implementing AI. Dr. Erickson’s research interests include computer-aided diagnosis and the use of computer technologies to extract information from medical images for diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic purposes. This research includes the development and validation of algorithms that can detect progression, regression of risk of disease, and the prediction of molecular markers from medical images. Dr. Erickson is actively developing a system to promote team science with connections to genomics, pathology and clinical data. The focus of Dr. Erickson’s research is to make radiologists better at extracting and understanding that information, making imaging more efficient, reliable and consistent.
Dr. Erickson received his Doctor of Medicine from the Mayo Medical School and his Doctor of Philosophy in physiology and biophysics from the Mayo Clinic School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences. He also completed a fellowship in neuroradiology in the Mayo Medical School.
Director of Translational Research
Department of Cardiovascular Diseases
Mayo Clinic
Jacksonville, Florida
Dr. DeLisa Fairweather is the director of translational research and a senior associate consultant in the Department of Cardiovascular Disease at Mayo Clinic in Florida, and an associate professor of medicine in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.
Dr. Fairweather and her team conduct translational research focused on finding individualized therapies and improved diagnosis for chronic inflammatory disease. Dr. Fairweather specializes in how sex differences in inflammation caused by environmental exposures lead to chronic inflammatory disease. The focus of Dr. Fairweather’s research is to better understand the pathogenesis of disease in hopes to discover new diagnoses and therapies for patients with cardiovascular and autoimmune diseases.
Dr. Fairweather earned her bachelor's degree in biology at Whitman College and Doctor of Philosophy in microbiology and immunology at the University of Western Australia. Subsequently, she completed a post-doctoral fellowship in immunology at John Hopkins University School of Medicine.
President & CEO
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, Minnesota
Dr. Gianrico Farrugia is the president and CEO of Mayo Clinic.
His research interests include understanding at a cellular, subcellular and molecular level how the normal functions of the gastrointestinal tract determine the defects that result in diseases such as diabetic gastroparesis, slow transit constipation and irritable bowel syndrome. A few other research focus areas include the role of ion channels in the human gastrointestinal tract, the role of interstitial cells of Cajal in disease, and the role of carbon monoxide in the gastrointestinal tract.
Dr. Farrugia earned his Doctor of Medicine from the Royal University of Malta & Medical School. Subsequently, he completed his residency and fellowship in internal medicine at Mayo Clinic.
Presentation Highlights
Medical Director, The North American Menopause Society
Penny and Bill George Director, Mayo Clinic Center for Women’s Health
Professor and Chair, Department of Medicine
Mayo Clinic
Jacksonville, Florida
Dr. Stephanie Faubion is a consultant in the Department of General Internal Medicine, professor and chair of the Department of Medicine at Mayo Clinic in Florida, director of the Mayo Clinic Center for Women’s Health and the medical director of The North American Menopause Society.
A few of her clinical research interests include menopause and sexual health in women. Dr. Faubion is co-Principal Investigator for the Data Registry on Experiences of Aging, Menopause and Sexuality (DREAMS). The purpose of the DREAMS database is to find patterns and variations in the experience of menopausal symptoms based on various variables, better understand how cancer impacts sexual health and determine best practices to manage dysfunction in this setting.
Dr. Faubion completed medical school and residency in internal medicine and pediatrics at the University of Texas Health Science School at Houston. She received her Masters of Business Administration at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota in 2019.
Director of Clinical Genome Sequencing Laboratory
Co-Director of Individualized Medicine Clinic – Clinomics Program
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, Minnesota
Dr. Matthew Ferber is a consultant in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, an associate professor of laboratory medicine and pathology in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, and serves as the director of the Clinical Genome Sequencing Laboratory in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at Mayo Clinic.
In his role as director of the Clinical Genome Sequencing Laboratory, Dr. Ferber leads a team of co-directors and laboratory staff focused on developing genomic applications to improve patient care. The overall goal of Dr. Ferber’s research is to create access to DNA sequencing technology that provides patients and their health care providers with a wealth of data to efficiently make well-informed, personalized decisions about treatments and other clinical options.
Dr. Ferber completed his Doctor of Philosophy in molecular biochemistry and molecular biology at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and a fellowship in clinical molecular genetics in the Mayo Clinic School of Health Sciences.
Interim Director of Mayo Clinic Cancer Center, Director for Innovation and Transformational Relationships at Mayo Clinic Arizona
Mayo Clinic
Phoenix, Arizona
Dr. Rafael Fonseca is the interim director of the Mayo Clinic Cancer Center, director for Innovation and Transformational Relationships and a consultant in the Department of Hematology at Mayo Clinic in Arizona, and a professor of medicine in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.
A few of his research interests include clinical trials for the treatment of myeloma and related conditions, a better understanding of the genetics of myeloma and related conditions, a new drug development, myeloma bone disease, pharmacoeconomics, and policy.
Dr. Fonseca received his Doctor of Medicine at Universidad Anahuac, Mexico. He completed his residency in internal medicine at the University of Miami and a fellowship in hematology and oncology in the Mayo Clinic Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.
Assistant Professor of Biomedical Informatics
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, Minnesota
Dr. Robert Freimuth is a senior associate consultant in the Department of Artificial Intelligence and Informatics at Mayo Clinic in Rochester and an associate professor of biomedical informatics in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.
A few of his research interests include the interface of medical informatics, bioinformatics and genomics to develop computational methods, tools and infrastructure that will speed the translation of advances in genomics to clinical practice. His research focuses on improving the ability to use genetic information in clinical practice and achieving the vision of personalized medicine. Through his research, Dr. Freimuth works on designing scalable and semantically interoperable systems that are based on standardized ontologies and terminologies, information models, and structured data elements.
Dr. Freimuth earned his Doctorate of Philosophy in molecular pharmacology and experimental therapeutics at the Mayo Graduate School of Biomedical Science and completed post-doctoral fellowships in molecular pharmacology and experimental therapeutics from the Mayo Clinic Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and molecular oncology from Washington University.
Program Co-Leader, Cancer Therapeutics & Host Response, UF Health Cancer Center
Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition
University of Florida College of Medicine
Gainesville, Florida
Dr. Christian Jobin is the Gatorade Trust Professor of Medicine at the University of Florida Gainesville. He is the co-leader of the Cancer Therapeutics Host Response research program at the University of Florida Health Cancer Center. He is also a primary faculty in the Department of Infectious Diseases and Immunology in the College of Veterinary Medicine.
Dr. Jobin focuses on establishing the functional impact of bacteria in inflammation and carcinogenesis and deciphering mechanism of action. His laboratory investigates the functional impact of bacteria in cancer development and treatment using gnotobiotic technology in combination with microbial genomics analysis and gene manipulation.
Dr. Jobin earned his Doctor of Philosophy in immunology and microbiology at Laval University in Quebec and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.
Professor of Internal Medicine
University of Oslo
Oslo, Norway
Dr. Thomas Hemming Karlsen is a senior consultant in the Department of Transplantation Medicine at Oslo University Hospital Rikshospitalet and a professor of internal medicine at the University of Oslo.
Dr. Karlsen has extensive research involving genetics and disease mechanisms in liver and gut inflammatory diseases, primarily sclerosing cholangitis (PSC).
Dr. Karlsen received his Doctor of Medicine at the University of Bergen and his Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Oslo.
Associate Director of Education, Center for Individualized Medicine
Associate Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine
Mayo Clinic
Phoenix, Arizona
Dr. Mira Keddis serves as a consultant in the Division of Nephrology, an associate professor of medicine in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, associate director of Education for the Center for Individualized Medicine in Arizona, the nephrology course director and the associate dean of Faculty Affairs for the Alix School of Medicine in Arizona.
Her research interests include improving cardiovascular evaluation and management of kidney transplant candidates and recipients, evaluating these patients’ access to care and clinical outcomes. By understanding how different imaging modalities and cardiovascular disease in these patients, Dr. Keddis hopes to improve the process of risk stratification prior to kidney transplant and to implement cardioprotective measures that can decrease patient risk after kidney transplant.
Dr. Keddis earned her Doctor of Medicine at the University of Texas Medical Branch and completed a fellowship at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.
Pharmacogenomics Clinical Specialist Pharmacist
Mayo Clinic
Phoenix, Arizona
Dr. Adrijana Kekic is a pharmacogenomics clinical specialist pharmacist at Mayo Clinic in Arizona. She also serves as the assistant program director for Pharmacy Education and as an instructor in Pharmacy in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.
Dr. Kekic specializes in personalized medical therapy management, healthcare disparities, and medication outcomes. She has extensive research involving topics such as pharmacogenomics, pharmacomicrobiomics, and multiomics. She is the founder of a Professional Network Group for High Impact Women in Healthcare.
Dr. Kekic earned her Doctor of Pharmacy at Midwestern University in 2004.
Director
Office of Genomics and Precision Public Health
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Atlanta, Georgia
Dr. Muin Khoury is the founding director of the CDC’S Office of Genomics and Precision Public Health.
Dr. Khoury has research interests in genetic epidemiology, public health genomics and precision public health. He has received the Public Health Service Special Recognition Award for his outstanding contributions to the scientific literature in the areas of birth defects and genetic epidemiology.
Dr. Khoury has developed many ongoing national and international initiatives to translate advances in genomics and precision health technology to recommendations and actions that improve health and prevent disease throughout the life stages.
Dr. Khoury received his Doctor of Medicine in pediatrics from the American University of Beirut, Lebanon and his Doctor of Philosophy in human genetics and genetic epidemiology from John Hopkins University.
Associate Professor of Biomedical Informatics
Center for Individualized Medicine
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, Minnesota
Dr. Eric Klee is a consultant in the Department of Quantitative Health Sciences and an associate professor of biomedical informatics in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.
His research interests include discovering how clinicians can apply information gathered from molecular-level data to diagnose and treat individual medical conditions and identify novel therapeutic strategies for treating alcohol abuse and tobacco dependence. His research is significant to patient care as it is focused on enabling the clinical adoption of this technology through the development and implementation of bioinformatics methods to assist medical services providers in the interpretation of these results.
Dr. Klee completed his Doctor of Philosophy in health informatics at the University of Minnesota.
Genetic Counselor
Center for Individualized Medicine
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, Minnesota
Ms. Teresa Kruisselbrink is a genetic counselor in the Center for Individualized Medicine at Mayo Clinic Rochester, MN and an instructor in laboratory medicine and pathology in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.
She manages a team of genetic counselors, where she develops and implements genetic counseling services in the advancement and translation of personalized genomic medicine throughout multiple programs and clinical departments. Teresa leads her team in the development and delivery of clinical and research tools, educational strategies, and operational plans to promote the integration of personalized medicine across a broad range of clinical disciplines. She provides direct patient genetic counseling services to patients with cardiomyopathies, channelopathies, aortopathies, and amyloidosis.
Ms. Kruisselbrink earned her Master of Science in genetic counselling at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities.
Carlson and Nelson Endowed Executive Director, Center for Individualized Medicine
Consultant in the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Department of Internal Medicine
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, Minnesota
Dr. Konstantinos Lazaridis is a consultant in the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Department of Internal Medicine, with a joint appointment in the Department of Clinical Genomics at Mayo Clinic. He is a professor of medicine in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.
A few of his research interests include genetic susceptibility to the environmental contributors to chronic cholestatic liver diseases and the biology of biliary epithelia. Through his research, Dr. Lazaridis and his team hopes to explain the development and outcome of chronic cholestatic liver diseases, namely primary biliary cirrhosis and primary sclerosing cholangitis.
Dr. Lazaridis received his Doctor of Medicine at the University of Ioannina in Greece. He completed his internal medicine and gastroenterology fellowship at Mayo Clinic.
Professor of Oncology
Department of Oncology
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, Minnesota
Dr. Minetta Liu is a consultant in the Department of Medical Oncology at Mayo Clinic and a professor of oncology in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.
Dr. Liu conducts patient-orientated research focused on two major areas: the development of clinically relevant molecular markers to allow for the most accurate prediction of treatment benefit and patient outcomes in solid tumor malignancies, and the development of novel therapeutics to improve survival in early-stage and metastatic breast cancer. Dr. Liu also leads several collaborative multi-institutional clinical trials through such mechanisms as the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology and the Translational Breast Cancer Research Consortium.
Dr. Liu earned her Doctor of Medicine at Jefferson Medical College. She completed her residency in the Department of Medicine and fellowship in the Division of Hematology and Oncology at Georgetown University Medical Center.
Assistant Professor of Neurology, Program Director of the Adult Neurology Residency Program
Mayo Clinic
Jacksonville, Florida
Dr. Elizabeth Mauricio is a neurologist, electromyographer, program director of the Adult Neurology Residency Program, consultant in the Department of Neurology at Mayo Clinic in Florida and an assistant professor of neurology in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.
She has been principal investigator in clinical trials involving hereditary TTR amyloidosis.
Dr. Mauricio earned her Doctor of Medicine at the New York Medical College. She completed her residency in neurology and fellowship in clinical neurophysiology at Mayo Clinic School of Graduate Medical Education.
Professor of Medicine, Clinical Director for Cardiovascular Medicine
Mayo Clinic
Jacksonville, Florida
Dr. Christopher McLeod is a consultant in the department of Cardiovascular Disease and clinical director for Cardiovascular Medicine at Mayo Clinic in Florida. He is also a professor of medicine in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.
Dr. McLeod’s research interest includes the investigation of ventricular arrhythmias and their association with sudden cardiac death in adults with congenital heart disease. Other projects he is involved in are the translational science investigations into novel techniques to map and eliminate ventricular tachycardia and ventricular fibrillation.
Dr. McLeod earned his Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery and Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Cape Town. Subsequently, he completed his residency in internal medicine and fellowships in cardiovascular diseases and cardiac electrophysiology at Mayo Clinic School of Graduate Medical Education.
Professor of Medical Genetics, Consultant
Department of Clinical Genomics, Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, Minnesota
Dr. Eva Morava-Kozicz is a geneticist and metabolic specialist who conducts translational research in mitochondrial disorders and congenital disorders of glycosylation (CDGs). She is a consultant in the Department of Clinical Genomics at Mayo Clinic and a professor of medical genetics in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine. She also serves as the program director and principal investigator of the U54 FCDGC consortium.
A few of her research interests include diagnostics therapy and follow-up of mitochondrial disease, discovering new congenital disorders of glycosylation, developing therapies for CDGs, and defining the new syndrome group of metabolic abnormalities. The findings from Dr.Morava-Kozicz’s research have a major impact on patient care and counseling and provide a better understanding of metabolic disease.
Dr. Morava-Kozicz completed her Doctor of Medicine and residency at the University Medical School of Pecs. Subsequently, she completed a fellowship in biochemical and clinical genetics at Tulane University School of Medicine.
Associate Professor of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology; Assistant Professor of Pharmacology
Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, Division of Laboratory Genetics and Genomics
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, Minnesota
Dr. Ann Moyer is a molecular genetic pathologist and consultant at Mayo Clinic. She also holds the academic rank of associate professor of laboratory medicine and pathology as well as assistant professor of pharmacology in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.
Dr. Moyer’s current clinical interests include pharmacogenomics, primary immunodeficiencies, genetics of benign hematologic conditions, and renal genetics. Her main research interests focus on pharmacogenomics and genetics of the complement system.
Dr. Moyer earned her medical and graduate degrees as part of the Mayo Clinic Medical Scientist Training Program, with her thesis work focused on the pharmacogenomics of phase II drug metabolizing enzymes under the mentorship of Dr. Richard Weinshilboum. Subsequently, she completed residency training in Anatomic and Clinical Pathology, with an additional year devoted to research, followed by a fellowship in Molecular Genetic Pathology, also at Mayo Clinic.
Chief Medical Officer
Invitae
San Francisco, California
Dr. Robert Nussbaum is a clinical geneticist with a research interest in molecular genetics testing and its role in the provision of medical care and disease prevention.
Dr. Nussbaum researches the cell biology of phosphoinositides and neurodegenerative disease due to abnormalities in alpha-synuclein. Dr. Nussbaum has served as Invitae’s Chief Medical Officer since August 2015.
He earned his Doctor of Medicine from Harvard Medical School in the Harvard-MIT joint program in Health Services and Technology. Subsequently, he completed his residency in internal medicine at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and a fellowship in medical genetics at the Baylor College of Medicine.
Associate Director of Education, Center for Individualized Medicine
Associate Professor of Medicine
Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology
Mayo Clinic
Jacksonville, Florida
Dr. William Palmer is a consultant in the Department of Gastroenterology at Mayo Clinic in Florida and is associate professor of medicine in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.
His research interest is in iron overload disorders (hereditary hemochromatosis). A few other research focus areas include advanced liver imaging in iron overload, assessing the role of direct-to-consumer genetic testing in iron overload, and identifying risk factors for severe arthritis in iron overload. Dr. Palmer also participates in research focused on gastrointestinal endoscopy, patient-provider education and other chronic liver diseases.
Dr. Palmer received his Doctor of Medicine from the University of South Carolina. Subsequently, he completed his residency in internal medicine at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.
Professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology
Center for Individualized Medicine
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, Minnesota
Dr. Akhilesh Pandey is a senior associate consultant at Mayo Clinic and a professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.
A few of his research interests include developing novel assays for clinical diagnostics and using systems biology approaches to study a variety of human diseases ranging from cancer and infectious diseases to inherited genetic disorders.
Dr. Pandey obtained his medical degree from Armed Forces Medical College, Pune and completed his residency in pathology at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School. He earned his Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Michigan in molecular biology.
Assistant Professor of Family Medicine
Department of Family Medicine
Mayo Clinic
Jacksonville, Florida
Dr. Richard Presutti is the Chair of the Department of Family Medicine for Mayo Clinic in Florida and an assistant professor of family medicine in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.
Dr. Presutti joined the medical staff of Mayo Clinic in 1997 and is certified by the American Board of Family Medicine, American Osteopathic Board of Family Practice, and holds a Certificate of Added Qualifications in Geriatrics. A few of his research interests include the use of Family History to identify those patients at risk for inherited cancers and how we translate and implement genomic discoveries into the everyday activities of primary care.
Dr. Presutti earned his Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine at Nova-Southeastern University of the Health Sciences. Subsequently, he completed his residency in family medicine at Mayo Clinic Florida.
Associate Professor of Medicine
Division of Hematology-Oncology
Mayo Clinic
Jacksonville, Florida
Dr. Hong Qin is a senior associate consultant at Mayo Clinic in Florida and an associate professor of medicine in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.
His research interest is the translational development of novel immunotherapies against blood cancer, including cancer vaccines, antibody therapies and adoptive chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cell therapy. Dr. Qin’s research aims at discovery of new therapeutic targets for advancing cancer immunotherapy and developing new strategies to overcome hurdles preventing the curative potential of immunotherapy for patients with cancer.
Dr. Qin earned his Doctor of Medicine at the Shanghai Second Medical University and his Doctor of Philosophy in anatomy and cell biology at the University of Western Ontario. Dr. Qin completed a postdoctoral fellowship in cancer immunotherapy at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and at the National Cancer Institute.
Presentation Highlights
Associate Professor of Neuroscience
Department of Neuroscience and Clinical Genomics
Mayo Clinic
Jacksonville, Florida
Dr. Owen Ross is a native of Ireland, who moved to the Department of Neuroscience in the Mayo Clinic in Florida in 2005. Dr. Ross is a consultant in the Department of Molecular Neuroscience and an associate professor of neuroscience in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.
Dr. Ross’ laboratory is focused on identifying genetic determinants of disease risk. His team works primarily on Parkinson’s disease and related movement disorders including Lewy body dementia, multiple system atrophy and progressive supranuclear palsy. He has co-authored of over 200 publications on ageing and age-related disease. He identified LRRK2 risk and protective variants and VPS35 mutations as a cause of Parkinson’s disease. He received the Mayo Clinic Team Science award (2016) for the genetics of Parkinson’s disease research with his clinical (Dr. Zbigniew Wszolek) and neuropathology (Dr. Dennis Dickson) colleagues.
Dr. Ross earned his Doctor of Philosophy in genetics from the University of Ulster.
Professor, Consultant
Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Department of Internal Medicine, and a joint appointment in the Department in the Clinical Geonomics
Mayo Clinic
Phoenix, Arizona
Dr. Niloy Jewel Samadder is a consultant in the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Department of Internal Medicine with a joint appointment in the Department in the Clinical and Genomics at Mayo Clinic in Arizona and is a professor of medicine in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine. He is the physician lead for the hereditary cancers clinic the Mayo Clinic Cancer Center in Arizona.
Dr. Samadder’s clinical interests focus on the diagnosis and management of patients with inherited forms of cancers, most notable those with gastrointestinal cancer syndromes such as Lynch Syndrome and Familial Adenomatous Polyposis.
Dr. Sammadder received his medical degree and completed his internal medicine residency at the University of Toronto, Canada. He subsequently completed a fellowship in gastroenterology at the University of Michigan and an advanced endoscopy fellowship at Mayo Clinic.
Assistant Professor
Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Disease
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, Minnesota
Dr. Gina A. Suh is an infectious diseases specialist with expertise in the field of orthopedic infectious diseases and phage therapy. She is a senior associate consultant in the Department of Infectious Diseases at Mayo Clinic and an assistant professor of medicine in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.
Before being recruited to Mayo Clinic, Dr. Suh created the Musculoskeletal-Infectious Disease program, a multi-disciplinary program encompassing infectious disease, orthopedics, plastics, and vascular surgery at Stanford University. Dr. Suh is the founder and director of Mayo Clinic’s Phage Therapy Program and has a special interest in bacteriophages as a novel therapeutic for the treatment of infections, particularly multi-drug resistant and biofilm-mediated infections. She treated Mayo Clinic’s first phage therapy patients and is heading efforts to run phage-related clinical trials.
Dr. Suh attended medical school and internal medicine residency at Temple University School of Medicine in Philadelphia. She completed a fellowship in infectious diseases at Stanford University.
Professor of Neurology, Professor of Neurosciences
Department of Neurology
Mayo Clinic
Jacksonville, Florida
Dr. Nilüfer Ertekin-Taner is a neurogeneticist focused on the complex genetics of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and other neurodegenerative diseases. She is a consultant in the Department of Neurology at Mayo Clinic in Florida and a professor of neurology and neuroscience in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.
The overall focus areas of Dr. Ertekin-Taner's laboratory are genetics of gene expression in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), and mapping and functional characterization of AD risk factors. Her innovative, groundbreaking work combining complex genomics and deep endophenotypes is essential for the discovery of molecular disease mechanisms, new treatments and biomarkers for these devastating and current incurable conditions.
Dr. Ertekin-Tanner received her Doctor of Medicine from Hacettepe University Medical School and her Doctor of Philosophy in molecular neuroscience from the Mayo Clinic Graduate School. She completed her residency training in the Department of Neurology and her fellowship in behavioral neurology at Mayo Clinic.
Presentation Highlights
Associate Professor of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, Associate Professor of Molecular Medicine
Department of Molecular Medicine
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, Minnesota
Dr. George Vasmatzis is the co-director of the Biomarker Discovery Program within the Center for Individualized Medicine. He is a consultant in the Department of Molecular Medicine at Mayo Clinic, an associate professor of molecular medicine and assistant professor of laboratory medicine and pathology in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.
His laboratory has demonstrated success in discovery and translation of several biomarkers as well as developing evidence-based models that should help clinicians stratify patients with cancer in order to provide each individual with the appropriate care. A few of his research focus areas include biomarker discovery for the diagnosis of cancer, lineage relationships in cancer progression, genomic changes, identification of viral integration sites, identification of targetable genomic changes in cancer, allelic dependence.
Dr. Vasmatzis completed his Doctor of Philosophy biomedical engineering at Boston University. Subsequently, Dr. Vasmatzis completed his postdoctoral research fellowship in the Laboratory of Molecular Biology at the National Cancer Institute.
Chief of Gastroenterology and Hepatology
Mayo Clinic/Sheikh Shakhbout Medical Center
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Dr. Michael Wallace is the chief of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the Mayo Clinic/Sheikh Shakbout Medical Center in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. He is a consultant in the Department of Gastroenterology and a professor in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.
Dr. Wallace’s research focuses on advanced imaging systems for the detection and treatment of early cancers and precancerous lesions of the gastrointestinal tract. His research offers the potential to detect cancers and precancerous growths at earlier stages and lead to less invasive — and often organ-preserving — nonsurgical treatments.
Dr. Wallace earned his Doctor of Medicine at Duke University. Subsequently, he completed his residency as well as a gastroenterology and hepatology fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School. He later received a Master of Public Health in clinical effectiveness at Harvard University.
Assistant Professor of Surgery
Department of Surgery
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, Minnesota
Dr. Marina Walther-Antonio is an associate consultant in the Department of Surgery at Mayo Clinic and an assistant professor of surgery in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.
She focuses around the microbiome’s effects on health and disease, especially in reproductive and sexual health and cancer. A few of Dr. Walther-Antonio's research interests include endometrial cancer microbiome biomarker development, microbiome role in endometrial cancer, and ovarian cancer microbiome signature.
Dr. Walther-Antonio received her Master of Science in microbiology at Indiana University and completed her Doctor of Philosophy in environmental sciences at Washington State University.
Professor of Pharmacology
Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, Minnesota
Dr. Liewei Wang is a consultant in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics at Mayo Clinic and professor of pharmacology in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.
As a principal investigator, Dr. Wang runs a research lab with a focus on understanding how host genome and somatic genome might contribute to drug response, drug selection and identification of potential future druggable targets. A few of her research interests include pharmacogenomics of anti-cancer treatment, clinical genome-wide association studies (GWASs), and translational pharmacogenomics and implementation pharmacogenomics.
Dr. Wang completed her Doctor of Medicine at FuDan University Medical School and her residency in internal medicine at Hua Dong Hospital. Dr. Wang earned a Doctor of Philosophy in pharmacology with molecular pharmacology and experimental therapeutics at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.
Professor of Pharmacology and Medicine
Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics and Medicine
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, Minnesota
Dr. Richard Weinshilboum is a consultant in the Department of Pharmacology and division chair in clinical pharmacology at Mayo Clinic, and a professor of medicine and pharmacology at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.
His research involves pharmacogenomics, specifically developing safer and more effect drug therapy to treat diseases that range from cancer to depression. A few of his research interests include why some children with childhood leukemia develop life-threatening adverse drugs reactions and why women with breast cancer develop drug-related toxicity or fail to respond to therapy. Dr. Weinshilboum’s research has been continuously funded for decades by the National Institutes of Health and other Foundation funding mechanisms.
Dr. Weinshilboum earned his Doctor of Medicine at the University of Kansas. Dr. Weinshilboum completed his residency in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Associate Professor of Biostatistics, Consultant
Department of Quantitative Health Sciences, Division of Computational Biology
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, Minnesota
Dr. Stacey Winham is a statistical geneticist interested in the genetic etiology of common, complex diseases. She is a consultant in the Department of Quantitative Health Sciences at Mayo Clinic and an associate professor of biostatistics in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.
She develops statistical methods to identify genetic risk factors for diseases in high-dimensional data and applies those analysis methods to studies of psychiatric genetics, breast cancer and ovarian cancer. A few of her research interests include biostatistics, data integration, data mining methods, gene-gene and gene-environment interactions, genetic epidemiology, statistical genetics, and X chromosome inactivation. Dr. Winham is also the Biostatistics Education Leader for the Mayo Clinic Graduate School and Center for Clinical and Translational Sciences and was the recipient of the Center for Clinical and Translational Sciences Educator of the Year Award in 2020.
Dr. Winham completed her Master of Science in statistics and her Doctor of Philosophy in statistics at the North Carolina State University.
Presentation Highlights
Vice President of Business Affairs
Attorney
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, Minnesota
Ms. Sharon Zehe is the vice president of Business Affairs and Attorney in the Legal Department at Mayo Clinic.
As an attorney, she has advised the laboratory at Mayo Clinic for 15 years and is a frequent speaker on legal and ethical issues in genetic testing.
Ms. Zehe received her Juris Doctor from the William Mitchell College of Law.
Host, Morning Edition
MPR News
Twin Cities, Minnesota
Cathy Wurzer is the host of Morning Edition for MPR News. She is also the co-host of Almanac, a weekly public affairs program she has won four Emmy Awards for.
Prior to MPR News, she was an anchor and reporter for WCCO-TV and a talk show host for WCCO-AM radio, a producer for KMSP-TV, and political reporter for KSTP-AM radio. Wurzer is the author of “Tales of the Road: Highway 61”.
She received her degree in broadcast journalism and urban studies from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls.
Senior Associate Consultant
Department of Clinical Genomics
Mayo Clinic
Jacksonville, Florida
Dr. Klaas Wierenga is a senior associate consultant in the Department of Clinical Genomics at Mayo Clinic Jacksonville, FL.
Dr. Wierenga’s research interests include neurogenetics and metabolic genetics, in which he has designed clinical homozygosity mapping software to improve interpretations when diagnosing rare genetic disorders. He specializes in diagnosing and treating genetic disorders in adults and children with a specific focus on rare Mendelian disorders using modern genetic diagnostic tools.
Dr. Wierenga earned his master in science in Biology and Doctor of Medicine from Groningen State University. He completed his residency in Medical Genetics at the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Hospital.
Fellow of AMIA and IEEE
Head of NLP, Natural Language Processing, (Executive Director), AI Innovation Center, Novartis
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Murthy Devarakonda's educational background is in computer science. He received his doctorate in computer science from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. All of his professional experience until joining ASU was as a research scientist and as a team manager at IBM Research, Yorktown Heights, NY.
Dr. Devarakonda was a member of the well-known IBM Watson team (who created IBM Watson that defeated two legendary champions in a televised Jeopardy! quiz show in 2011). He joined the team after the televised event in 2011 and through 2017, he was the lead and the team manager for an initiative to apply IBM Watson methodology to longitudinal patient records, especially concentrating on the textual narratives of the patient records. They worked with patient records and physicians from multi-specialty hospitals, developing natural language processing and machine learning methods for automatically extracting insights such as the problem list from the text narratives of a patient record.
Prior to the IBM Watson tenure, Dr. Devarakonda's research was mainly in distributed computing systems where he applied data science (before it was called by that name) to identify insights from measurement data and to use the insights as foundational elements to develop novel algorithms and distributed systems.
Dr. Devarakonda is a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and a distinguished member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). He received an Outstanding Technical Achievement Award, a Master Inventor award, and several Research Division Awards at IBM. He's published more than 60 refereed papers in conferences and journals. He's also received 42 patents for the work at IBM Research.
Robert Freedman Endowed Professor
Chair of the Department of Psychiatry
University of Colorado School of Medicine - Anschutz Medical Campus (CU-AMC)
Aurora, Colorado
C. Neill Epperson, MD, is the Robert Freedman Endowed Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Colorado School of Medicine-Anschutz Medical Campus (CU-AMC) where she is also the Executive Director of the Helen E. and Arthur Johnson Depression Center. Before being recruited to CU-Anschutz, Dr. Epperson served as the founder and director of both the Penn Center for Women’s Behavioral Wellness and Penn PROMOTES, Research on Sex and Gender in Health at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia where she was a tenured Professor of Psychiatry, with a secondary appointment in Obstetrics and Gynecology. Dr. Epperson received her medical degree at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and completed her postdoctoral and research training in psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, where she rose to the level of associate professor before her recruitment to the University of Pennsylvania in 2009.
Dr. Epperson is internationally known for her unique lifespan approach to women’s reproductive and behavioral health in her clinical, teaching, leadership, and scholarly endeavors. Dr. Epperson’s body of research has led to a greater appreciation of the impact of gonadal steroids on brain structure and function and the importance of considering reproductive status and sex in all biomedical research. In addition, Dr. Epperson’s research demonstrates that childhood adversity has an enduring impact on physiologic responses during times of hormonal fluctuation as well as gonadal steroid effects on brain and behavior. Dr. Epperson’s research has been consistently funded by the National Institutes of Health for more than 2 decades. She is a productive mentor and independent investigator with more than 200 peer-reviewed publications and presentations.
Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine
The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University
Providence, Rhode Island
Alyson J. McGregor, MD MA FACEP, is a physician, researcher, and writer.
She is an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University and Director for the Division of Sex and Gender in Emergency Medicine. Her research on the roles sex and gender play in emergent conditions has made her a spokesperson and advocate for women around the world.
Dr. McGregor currently serves as a member of the Advisory Committee Research on Women’s Health (ACRWH) for the Office of Research on Women’s Health, National Institutes of Health. A Co-Founder of the national organization Sex and Gender Women’s Health Collaborative, Dr. McGregor also recently served as Co-Chair of the Sex and Gender Health Education Summit, designed to establish an integrative sex and gender curriculum for current and future health professionals. Dr. McGregor is also the director for a SGEM two-year fellowship program and SGEM educational electives for residents and medical students.
Dr. McGregor’s TEDx talk, “Why Medicine Often Has Dangerous Side Effects for Women,” currently has over 1.6 million views and she has recently released her new book “Sex Matters: How Male-Centric Medicine Endangers Women’s Health and What We Can Do About It”, Hatchet Book Group Publishing.
Anita Dann Friedman Endowed Chair in
Women’s Cardiovascular Medicine and Research
Associate Director of the Barbra Streisand Women's Heart Center in the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
Los Angeles, California
Chrisandra Shufelt MD, MS holds the Anita Dann Friedman Endowed Chair in Women’s Cardiovascular Medicine and Research and is the Associate Director of the Barbra Streisand Women's Heart Center in the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. She is also the Director of the Women's Hormone and Menopause Program and co-Director of the Preventive and Rehabilitative Cardiac Center. Dr. Shufelt is Professor of Medicine and Faculty at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and Associate Professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
Dr. Shufelt is a women’s health expert, board certified in internal medicine with fellowship training in vascular biology and women's health and a certified menopause practitioner. She has several National and International leadership roles in the American College of Physicians, the European Menopause and Andropause Society and the North American Menopause Society where she is President-elect of the Society and currently on the board of trustees.
She has also co-authored several scientific position statements on menopause and hormone therapy.
Her research is NIH-funded and focuses on young women with hypothalamic amenorrhea, a condition where women stop their menstrual cycle due to stress resulting in low estrogen and infertility. She is specifically evaluating the impact on immune and cardiovascular health. Dr. Shufelt has over 140 publications in the area of women’s health and is involved with several large studies including the Women’s Ischemia Syndrome Evaluation, the Women’s Health Initiative, the Los Angeles Atherosclerosis Study and is site PI for the WARRIOR clinical trial.
If you have additional registration questions, email imconference@mayo.edu.
