ASCI / Young Physician-Scientist Awards, 2023
The Young Physician-Scientist Awards (YPSA) recognize physician-scientists who are early in their first faculty appointment and have made notable achievements in their research.
About the awardee
Andrew B. Stergachis, MD, PhD is motivated by the question of how alterations in gene regulation contribute to human disease. This question has developed out of experience witnessing both the potential and limitations of genomic medicine in his roles as a clinical geneticist, and basic science researcher. Specifically, although we have the tools to map the human genome, we currently lack an ability to systematically interpret much of its material – a shortcoming that limits both our ability to understand human diseases as well as our ability to translate genomic discoveries into clinical therapies. To address this, Dr. Stergachis has pursued an understanding of gene regulation and human disease—a journey that to date has led him through undergraduate degrees in biochemistry and chemistry at the University of Chicago, a PhD in Genome Sciences and an MD from the University of Washington, and both internal medicine and medical genetics residency training at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
Along the way, Dr. Stergachis demonstrated how a cell’s reading of the genetic blueprint changes during normal development, oncogenesis, and human evolution, and more recently have developed a method for single-molecule chromatin fiber sequencing (Fiber-seq) that has provided fundamental insights into basic principles of gene regulatory patterns and chromatin architecture. This work has been recognized by multiple awards, including a Burroughs Wellcome Career Award for Medical Scientists, an NIH Director's Early Independence Award, and a Pew Biomedical Scholars award.
More recently, Dr. Stergachis joined the faculty at the University of Washington, where his lab focuses on applying and further developing single-molecule chromatin fiber sequencing technologies for understanding how the genome is regulated during human development and disease, including studying gene regulation within previously unchartered portions of the human genome. In addition, he cares for patients in the cardiovascular genetics and adult genetics clinic.