Elizabeth Plender

Lizzie is a PhD student in the Department of Genome Sciences at the University of Washington. She is mentored by Evan Eichler (UW) and Jesse Bloom (Fred Hutch Cancer Center). She studies structural genetic variability in the mucin genes and how they have uniquely evolved in humans in response to environmental selective pressures. She is currently working on a mucin genetic diversity project using long-read genome assemblies from over 250 diverse human genomes to uncover novel disease-relevant alleles.