We were very pleased to host Alison Motsinger-Reif, Ph.D., a JAX CRC collaborator from North Carolina State University (NCSU) on December 1, 2017 at The Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine in Farmington, CT. Alison is an Associate Professor at NCSU and does exciting research on developing computational methods to detect genetic risk factors of common, complex traits in human populations.

Alison will be taking the lead with the Biostatistics aspect of the ME/CFS project. She has a background in human biology and is passionate about methods development in her research. During the visit, Alison met with all of the JAX CRC collaborators to discuss various aspects of the ME/CFS project. Alison also presented her recent exciting work on finding links between  genetics and the effectiveness of cancer drugs. She highlighted her current projects, which determine the variability in individual genetics and the responses to drugs and chemical exposure by using genetic association mapping. She hopes to find predictors of individual response to these types of exposures, as well as dissect underlying mechanisms of differential response.

She is very excited to be partnering with the researchers for the JAX CRC. Her visit was particularly special for Derya as she got her start in the sciences in his laboratory at Vanderbilt University as an undergraduate student. Derya mentioned that he specifically reached out to Alison when putting together the ME/CFS Center application because he knew she is an amazing scientist and would contribute greatly to our efforts in tackling this disease.

A memorable photo with the JAX ME/CFS CRC members; a great team!