Jackson Laboratory: Paul Flicek
The Jackson Laboratory has appointed Paul Flicek as its first-ever chief data science officer. Flicek will join Jax this summer to create and execute an organization-wide data science strategy, as well as lead and manage relationships with Jax's data and analytics partners. He most recently was associate director of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory's European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), an organization he maintains an affiliation with. Flicek is known for leading development of the Ensembl genome browser, as well as for his involvement with projects including the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE), the 1,000 Genomes Project, and the International Human Epigenome Consortium.
ACMG Foundation for Genetic and Genomic Medicine: Sucheta Bhatt, Rong Mao
The American College of Medical Genetics (ACMG) Foundation for Genetic and Genomic Medicine has elected Sucheta Bhatt and Rong Mao to its board of directors. Each will serve a two-year term beginning Feb. 1, 2023.
Bhatt is a senior medical director in medical affairs at Illumina. Prior to that, she was at noninvasive prenatal testing startup Verinata. She has also served as medical director and director of the prenatal diagnostics center at Genzyme Genetics (now Integrated Genetics). She received her medical degree from the University of Bombay and completed a fellowship in clinical genetics at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and the University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine. She also serves as an adviser to the Board of Genetic Counseling in India.
Mao is board-certified in clinical molecular genetics, and is a tenured professor and medical director of molecular genetics and genomics at University of Utah/ARUP Laboratories, where she was also section chief of molecular genetics and genomics from 2016 to 2021. She joined the DNA Diagnostic Laboratory in the department of obstetrics and gynecology in 2000 and department of pathology at University of Utah/ARUP Laboratories in 2003, after completing a clinical molecular genetics fellowship at Mayo Clinic. She is also a member of the steering committee for the University of Utah site for the National Institutes of Health Undiagnosed Disease Network. Mao holds an M.D. from Capital University of Medicine in Beijing and an M.S. degree in molecular pathology from Beijing Union Medical College.
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