Dr. Bennett is an Associate Professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine in the Department of Pediatrics, Division of Genetic Medicine. He is also a Principal Investigator in the Center for Developmental Biology and Regenerative Medicine (CDBRM) at the Seattle Children’s Research Institute.

His research is focused on somatic mutations that arise after the single cell zygote stage and are not present in every cell in the body. These mutations are difficult to detect, require access to tissues and sensitive sequencing approaches. A central hypothesis of the lab is that "hidden" genetic variation contributes more to pediatric developmental diseases than is currently appreciated. His lab has contributed to the characterization of genetic causes of isolated vascular malformations, most of which are due somatic mutations in the PI3K-AKT or RAS-MAPK pathways. He is an investigator within the SMaHT consortium which aims to develop a catalogue of somatic mutations across numerous tissues in a cohort of 150 individuals.

In addition to research, Dr. Bennett also sees patients in pediatric genetics clinic and is a co-director of the Seattle Children’s Hospital Molecular Diagnostic lab, where he oversees a clinical diagnostic assay for detecting mutations in vascular anomalies, known as "VANSeq."

Assistant Professor Cagan will speak about his work exploring somatic mutational landscapes in species with diverse lifespans and life-histories to elucidate the principles of somatic evolution.

Tim Coorens is a postdoctoral fellow at the Broad Institute, working with Gad Getz and Kristin Ardlie. His research focuses on characterizing the patterns of somatic mutations across human tissues, as part of the SMaHT Network, and using mutations as natural lineage markers to study human development and the origins of cancer. Tim is setting up his own research group focused on somatic evolution at EMBL-EBI in 2025.

Bob Handsaker's research focuses on parts of the human genome undergoing rapid mutation, including multi-allelic copy number variants, tandem repeat polymorphisms, and regions of the genome with complex evolutionary histories. Bob will speak about recent work arising from a collaboration between the labs of Steve McCarroll and Sabina Berretta that has enabled new insights into the cellular pathology underlying Huntington's disease and the key role of somatic expansion of the CAG repeat that causes the disease.

Elinor Karlsson, PhD, is associate professor in Bioinformatics and Integrative Biology at the UMass Chan Medical School, and director of Vertebrate Genomics at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Her research uses new technology and the power of evolution to investigate diseases and the origins of exceptional mammalian traits.

Kamila Naxerova is an Assistant Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School. Her lab studies somatic evolution in humans, ranging from normal tissue evolution (and its implications for carcinogenesis) to late-stage cancer development and metastasis formation.

Dan Landau, MD, PhD is a Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine and a Core Member of the New York Genome Center. He is an oncologist whose long-term goal is to develop novel technologies to address cancer evolution as a central obstacle to cure. His research group is funded by the NCI, NHLBI and NHGRI, and his work has led to recognition and awards including Stand Up to Cancer, Burroughs Wellcome Fund, Vallee Scholar, and the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award.

Molly Przeworski is currently the Alan H. Kempner Professor of Biological Sciences and of Systems Biology at Columbia University. The focus of her work is in population genetics. Molly earned her BA in mathematics from Princeton University and her PhD in evolutionary biology from the University of Chicago, then completed a postdoc in the statistics department at the University of Oxford. Prior to joining Columbia, she was a researcher at a Max Planck Institute and on the faculty at Brown and the University of Chicago. Work in her group has contributed to a better understanding of mutation and meiotic recombination processes in vertebrates, as well as of natural selection in humans. In recognition of this research, she was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2020, and was the recipient of the 2023 Scientific Achievement Award from the American Society of Human Genetics.