The Kraw Lecture Series in Silicon Valley features UC Santa Cruz scientists and technologists.

Join us in December for:

Making precision medicine personal for kids: How researchers and doctors are giving new hope to kids with cancer using big data genomics

With the UC Santa Cruz Treehouse Cancer Initiative:
David Haussler, co-founder
Olena Morozova, co-founder
Lauren Sanders, Ph.D. student
Isabel Bjork, director

There are several truisms about childhood cancer: it tends to be aggressive, differs from adult cancers, and when treatments fail, time runs out quickly. Precision medicine powered by big data becomes personal when university researchers and doctors team up. The Treehouse Cancer Initiative at UC Santa Cruz uses comparative cancer genomic analysis to help doctors treat kids with few options. Learn more about how a new project partnering our Treehouse researchers with Stanford doctors is bringing new hope to families.

[content_band style=”color: #333;” bg_color=”#efefef” border=”all” inner_container=”true”] [custom_headline style=”margin-top: 0;” level=”h4″ looks_like=”h3″]Tuesday, December 5[/custom_headline]

6 p.m. Wine and small bites reception with speakers, followed by lecture

UC Santa Cruz Silicon Valley Campus
3175 Bowers Avenue in Santa Clara [/content_band]

Kindly register by Thursday, November 30

Questions? Contact the UC Santa Cruz Special Events Office at (831) 459-5003 or specialevents@ucsc.edu.

Speakers

[column type=”1/4″] [/column] [column type=”3/4″ last=”true”]David Haussler

David develops new statistical and algorithmic methods to explore the molecular function, evolution, and disease process in the human genome. As a collaborator on the international Human Genome Project, his team posted the first publicly available computational assembly of the human genome sequence. His team subsequently developed the UCSC Genome Browser, a web-based tool that is used extensively in biomedical research. He also co-founded the Genome 10K Project, co-founded the Treehouse Childhood Cancer Project, and is a co-founder of the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health, a coalition of the top research, health care, and disease advocacy organizations. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts & Science.
[/column]

[column type=”1/4″] [/column] [column type=”3/4″ last=”true”]Olena Morozova

Olena is a Clinical Molecular Genetics Fellow at UC San Francisco, where she is involved in the development and administration of CLIA-validated genomic tests for patients with cancer and other genetic diseases. Prior to pursuing the fellowship, she co-founded the Treehouse Childhood Cancer Initiative at UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute. She also led the California Kids Cancer Comparison (CKCC) project, part of the California Initiative to Advance Precision Medicine, recently launched by Governor Brown. CKCC is changing how childhood cancer is understood and treated through genomic data. Olena holds a Ph.D. in Bioinformatics from the University of British Columbia and a BSc (Hons) in Molecular Genetics and Biology from the University of Toronto.

[/column]

[column type=”1/4″] [/column] [column type=”3/4″ last=”true”]Lauren Sanders

Lauren is a Ph.D. student at UC Santa Cruz, conducting her thesis research with the Treehouse Childhood Cancer Initiative. Her work focuses on the development of genomic methods for the molecular characterization of pediatric cancers. Her primary focus is employing genomic data to aid in the identification of aberrant gene activity in pediatric brain tumors. Lauren worked previously as a research associate in Raul Andino’s lab at UC San Francisco, and she holds a BA in Molecular and Cell Biology from UC Berkeley.

[/column]