Meet Dr. Jay Shendure, a Seattle-based scientist and University of Washington professor. His team at the Brotman Baty Institute for Precision Medicine showed that it’s possible to sequence the complete genome of a fetus from samples obtained noninvasively from the parents.
What do you do? I’m the scientific director for the Brotman Baty Institute for Precision Medicine — a collaboration between UW Medicine, Fred Hutch and Seattle Children’s. I’m also a professor of genome sciences at the University of Washington School of Medicine.
I’m a scientist. I develop technologies that help us understand the human genome, and, in particular, how genetic differences between us might contribute to our risk of both rare and common diseases. Other projects that my research lab or the BBI are heavily involved in include mapping all of the cell types in the human body; understanding how every possible change in a cancer gene like BRCA1 can affect a woman’s risk for breast and ovarian cancer; and trying to map the transmission of flu through the city of Seattle during the course of an actual flu season.
