WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Associate Lead
- Professor of Medicine
Dr. Wilcox is a Professor of Medicine and the Director of the Center for Applied Clinical Informatics, Institute for Informatics, Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine. He has broad experience in both applied and research informatics, both in academia and healthcare delivery organizations. He leads strategy and activities related to application of informatics tools and methods to improve clinical care and research. Nationally, he is noted for his work with designing, developing and sustaining data systems for populations with research and electronic health record data; for design and implementation of health information systems; and for advancing methods in sustainability of data systems.
Job Titles:
- Director, Division of Pediatric and Developmental Neurology
- Lead and ICTS Liaison
- Professor
Dr. Gurnett is a Professor in the Department of Neurology, Division of Pediatric Neurology, and Associate Director of the Institute for Clinical Translational Sciences. Her major research interest is the genetic basis of musculoskeletal diseases affecting children, including adolescent idiopathic scoliosis, clubfoot, and arthrogryposis. Dr. Gurnett is on faculty at the Hope Center for Neurological Disorders and is Director of the Clinical and Translational Core of the WU Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center.
Job Titles:
- Precision Health Program Scientist
Joyce (Joy) Balls-Berry, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Neurology at Washington University School of Medicine and Core Leader for the newly established Health Disparities and Equity Core in the Knight ADRC (Center Director John Morris, MD). Prior to joining Washington University School of Medicine, Balls-Berry was an Assistant Professor of Epidemiology and Senior Associate Consultant at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science. She completed her formal education at Xavier University of Louisiana with graduate training at Washington University School of Medicine and The University of Toledo. Balls-Berry completed a post-doctoral research fellowship in health equity, epidemiology, and biostatistics at The University of Florida. Her work as a scientist centers on increasing awareness of the importance of community-patient engagement in research to increase health equity in minority and under-resourced communities. Recently, she completed a PCORI project to expand the efforts of the Minority Women in Research Network, which she established in 2011. The network's mission is to promote community-patient engagement in research conducted by minority women scientists interested in research collaborations, academic scholarship, innovation, and dissemination. As an educator, Balls-Berry received the Mayo Clinic Teacher of Year for the Graduate School and Educator of the Year for the Center for Clinical and Translational Science awards. The faculty and the student body vote on these awards. Recently, she shared her story of living with dyslexia and handling personal challenges as TEDx Talk.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor
- Associate Lead
Dr. Bolton is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Oncology. Her lab studies how genetic and environmental factors intersect to influence cancer risk. In particular, she is interested in understanding how acquired mutations in the blood (clonal hematopoiesis) lead to hematologic malignancies and what we can do to prevent this.
Job Titles:
- Principal Investigator
- Associate Lead
Dr. Bierut, Principal Investigator, is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry. Her research focuses on environmental and genetic contributions to smoking behaviors and addiction. She also studies the genetics and environmental risks associated with breast cancer in African American women. Dr. Bierut is an active member in the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Genetics Consortium, a national group of scientists who are leading NIDA's efforts to understand genetic causes of substance dependence.
Dr. Griffith is Associate Professor of Medicine (oncology) and Genetics and Assistant Director of the McDonnell Genome Institute at Washington University Dr. Griffith's research is focused on the development of personalized medicine strategies for cancer. He develops bioinformatics tools and methods for the analysis of high throughput sequence data to improve our understanding of cancer biology, treatment and mechanisms of resistance. In the past few years, immunogenomics has become a major focus of his research. Dr. Griffith is a co-chair of the Global Alliance for Genomic Health Variant Interpretation for Cancer Consortium and also co-chair of the ClinGen Somatic Clinical Domain Working Group. He has published over 110 studies, received numerous research awards and honors and held several large grants from NIH including a K99/ROO Career Development Award, U01/U24 for Development of Informatics Technologies for Cancer Research, and others. He has mentored more than 50 bioinformatics trainees and taught more than 500 as an instructor Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories and several international research institutions and Bioinformatics Workshop organizations.
Job Titles:
- Lead
- Professor of Pediatrics
Dr. Cooper, Is a Professor of Pediatrics in Pediatric Rheumatology/Immunology. Her laboratory is focused on mechanisms of immune cell control, including regulation of natural killer cell activation and molecular mechanisms driving pediatric immune-mediated disease. Current work in her laboratory is focused on understanding how metabolic pathways regulate NK cell functional responses and on the origins of pediatric immune dysregulation. Her lab uses genomic sequencing to identify genetic causes of pediatric disease to better understand these diseases using in vitro and in vivo models. Dr. Cooper is the Director of the Clinical Immunology program and the Jeffrey Modell Diagnostic and Research Center for Primary Immunodeficiencies at St. Louis Children's Hospital.
Nandini Raghuraman, MD, MSCI is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine at Washington University in St. Louis and the Associate Fellowship Program Director. She is a NIH-funded physician scientist with a strong interest in Labor & Delivery clinical trials, evidence-based approaches to intrauterine fetal resuscitation, obstetric biospecimen banking, de-implementation in obstetrics, and high-risk pregnancy management.
Dr. Griffith is Associate Professor of Medicine (Oncology) and Genetics and Assistant Director of the McDonnell Genome Institute at Washington University. Dr. Griffith's research is focused on the development of personalized medicine strategies for cancer. He develops bioinformatics tools and methods for the analysis of high throughput sequence data and identification of biomarkers for diagnostic, prognostic and drug response prediction. Dr. Griffith is President-Elect of the Cancer Genomics Committee, on the Steering Committee for the Global Alliance for Genomic Health, and co-chair of the Variant Interpretation for Cancer Consortium. He has published over 100 studies, received numerous research awards and honors and held several large grants from the NIH including a K22 Transition Career Development Award, U01/U24 for Development of Informatics Technologies for Cancer Research, and others. He has mentored more than 50 bioinformatics trainees and taught hundreds more as an Instructor for Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories and the Canadian Bioinformatics Workshops.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor
- Associate Lead
Dr. Hartz is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry. Her research centers on Psychiatric Genetics and Behavior, specifically in addiction and psychotic disorders. She is also interested in the ethical implications of returning research results to participants in Alzheimer's Disease studies. Dr. Hartz serves as a reviewer for the WU Institutional Review Board.
Job Titles:
- Clinical Research Supervisor
Ms. Salyer, the ICTS Precision Medicine Navigator, has over 15 years of experience working in biomedical research at Washington University School of Medicine. During her career, she has managed studies investigating the genetics of alcohol use disorder and smoking behaviors, and she has been involved with several research studies focused on returning genetic results to research participants. Ms. Salyer's expertise includes project management, study design, clinical phenotyping, and research compliance.