Happy #OMFScienceWednesday! Today we profile Dr. Lars Steinmetz, a new member of the OMF-funded ME / CFS Collaborative Research Center at Stanford. Dr. Steinmetz, a Professor of Genetics, is known for his contributions to the understanding of how genetic variations lead to physiological traits, including disease. He did his PhD at Stanford University with our Scientific Advisory Board Director Dr. Ron Davis, and is skilled in inventing technologies that reveal new aspects of genome biology. Dr. Davis calls him one of the best geneticists he knows!
In this video of his presentation to a public (non-scientist) audience, Dr. Steinmetz talks about the revolutions that have taken place in genomics and how they are changing the way scientists study disease. He mentions the All of Us Initiative by the National Institutes of Health that is now recruiting 1 million volunteers in the US to study the role of genetics in health. He also talks about personal lifestyle changes he has made because of his own genetic profile – and how new technologies are making breakthroughs into a rare disease his team is studying in collaboration with patients, their families, and an international team of scientists.
Dr. Steinmetz’s scientific track record makes him an ideal part of the #MECFS research community as the evidence mounts for a genetic component of the disease. Some of the latest technologies developed by his team for analyzing single cells will also be very useful (more on that in a later post). We are glad to be funding his research!
Read more about Dr. Steinmetz and his research on his lab webpage.
To keep up with our weekly #OMFScienceWednesday posts, be sure to like our Facebook page!