NHGRI Division of Intramural Research Seminar Series
Event Details
The Division of Intramural Research (DIR) sponsors a monthly series of talks by intramural and special guest speakers celebrating genetics and genomics research. Speakers are selected by NHGRI intramural faculty and trainees and cover research topics of interest to a wide audience.
All seminars are free and open to the public. Seminar titles and other details are updated as information becomes available.
For more information, please contact Dr. Shawn Burgess at burgess@mail.nih.gov.
Hybrid: In-Person and Zoom Webinar (Requires Registration)
Recorded Videos
Upcoming Seminars
Understanding genetic variants: from technology development to the clinic
February 23, 2023, 2:00 - 3:00 p.m. ET
Douglas M. Fowler, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Genome Sciences
University of Washington
Speaker Biography: The Fowler lab is interested in how mutations impact protein function. Protein-coding mutations are important because they underlie many diseases (e.g. cancer).. Furthermore, studying the consequences of mutagenesis can reveal biochemical properties of proteins. Finally, point mutations are the smallest unit of change in protein sequence during evolution. Recently, we developed deep mutational scanning, a method that uses high-throughput DNA sequencing to characterize the functional consequences of large numbers (10^5-10^6) of mutations in a protein simultaneously. Currently, we are using deep mutational scanning to establish a large-scale genotype-phenotype map for cancer related proteins and to study protein aggregation.
Hosts: Meru Sadhu and Michael Chambers
March 23, 2023, 2:00 - 3:00 p.m. ET
Christina Cuomo, Ph.D.
Group Leader, Fungal Genomics Group
Associate Director, Genomic Center for Infectious Diseases
Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard
April 20, 2023, 2:00 - 3:00 p.m. ET
John M. Greally, Ph.D., D.Med., M.B.,B.Ch., B.A.O.
Professor, Department of Genetics
Professor, Department of Pediatrics (Pediatric Genetic Medicine)
Chief, Department of Genetics Division of Genomics
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
May 4, 2023, 2:00 - 3:00 p.m. ET
Rasmus Nielsen, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Integrative Biology
University of California, Berkeley
June 22, 2023, 2:00 - 3:00 p.m.
Harmit Malik, Ph.D.
Professor and Associate Director
Basic Sciences Division
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center
September 21, 2023, 2:00 - 3:00 p.m. ET
Brittany Adamson, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Molecular Biology and the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics
Princeton University
Past Seminars
The Biology of Health Disparities: Ancestry-Driven Drug Discovery
October 6, 2022, 2:00 - 3:00 p.m. ET
K. Sean Kimbro, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Biomedical and Biological Sciences
Director, Integrated Bioscience Ph.D. Program
JLC Biomedical Biotechnology Research Institute
North Carolina Central University
Hosts: Shawn Burgess and Ariel Williams
* Co-hosted by the Genomics and Health Disparities Lecture Series
Ancestry and diseases in Latin American populations
November 3, 2022, 2:00 - 3:00 p.m. ET
Eduardo Tarazona-Santos, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Genetics, Ecology and Evolution
Institute of Biological Sciences
Federal University of Minas Gerais
Brazil
Speaker Biography: My research focuses on the genetics of Indigenous and admixed Latin American populations. I lead the Laboratory of Human Genetic Diversity at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, which focuses on three areas: (i) the role of genomic diversity of Indigenous and admixed Latin American populations in the genetic architecture of complex diseases and drug response; (ii) inferences about the Pre-Columbian demographic history of Native American populations and the dynamics of Post-Columbian admixture in the Americas using genetic data; and (iii) the development of new concepts and tools in computational biology to study human genetic diversity. We are involved in the EPIGEN-Brazil Project, a major initiative at the interface of human genomics, epidemiology of complex diseases, and computational biology. I also lead the genomics and bioinformatics aspect of a project with a cohort of over 10,000 elderly Brazilian individuals. Recently, my group has initiated the Mosaico Translational Genomics project, which uses a transdisciplinary approach to integrate concepts of computational biology, genomics, medicine, and public health in global precision and evidence-based medicine.
Hosts: Charles Rotimi and Mateus Gouveia
Phylomapping: the use of nature’s experiments to understand the genetic regulation of diversity, development and disease
December 15, 2022, 2:00 - 3:00 p.m. ET
Matthew Harris, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Genetics
Harvard Medical School
Speaker Biography: My research leverages forward genetic as well as genomic approaches to understand developmental processes that potentiate growth and patterning in late development. My lab’s work combines analysis of mutants identified in zebrafish and comparative genomics in a broad expanse of other fishes exhibiting unique phenotypes. These approaches have proven to be powerful in modeling developmental and genetic causes of both evolutionary change and human skeletal disorders. Our work has provided a foundation for the use of fish as experimental models and comparative genomics to understand the genetic regulation of development and disease. Current research program focuses on the regulation of proportional growth, bioelectric regulation of development and regeneration, as well as stem cell maintenance in aging.
Hosts: Shawn Burgess and Luis Colon-Cruz
Mechanisms of CRISPR-mediated immunity and applications beyond editing
January 5, 2023, 2:00 - 3:00 p.m. ET

Blake Wiedenheft, Ph.D.
Professor, Microbiology and Immunology; Biotechnology
Montana State University
Speaker Biography: Viruses that infect bacteria (i.e., bacteriophages) are the most abundant biological entities on earth, and the selective pressures that these pervasive predators impose have a profound impact on the composition and behavior of microbial communities in every ecological setting. Work in the Wiedenheft laboratory aims to understand the mechanisms that bacteria use to defend themselves from phage infection and counter mechanisms that phages use to subvert bacterial immune systems. We aim to determine the molecular structures of the cellular machines that mediate bacterial immunity, and we aim to use these structures to understand function. The scientific culture in the Wiedenheft lab is to understand and engineer cellular machines with new functions for applications in biotechnology and medicine.
Hosts: Julie Segre and Amanda Fuchs
Last updated: January 26, 2023