Workshop: Beyond genetic associations: using the Association to Function Knowledge Portal to prioritize potential effector genes for complex diseases

Maria Costanzo, Ph.D., is the Creative Lead for the Knowledge Portal Network at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Costanzo earned her Ph.D. in molecular biology at Harvard University and holds a B.A. degree in microbiology from the University of Pennsylvania. Costanzo’s role on the Portal team is to spread awareness of the resources and to facilitate use of the Knowledge Portals, by writing clear documentation and participating in tool and interface development. Prior to joining the Broad Institute in 2015, Costanzo was a biocuration scientist with the Saccharomyces, Candida, and Aspergillus Genome Databases at Stanford University. She was also employed by Proteome, Inc. and Incyte Genomics, and performed basic research on the genetics and molecular biology of the model organism Saccharomyces cerevisiae (brewer’s/baker’s yeast) at Cornell University.

Noël Burtt is the director of operations and development of the Diabetes Research & Knowledge Portals in the Medical and Population Genetics Program and Metabolism Program at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Burtt received her B.S. from the University of New Hampshire in molecular biology and human genetics. Burtt’s work centers on the operational and organizational leadership of large-scale, international genetics consortia and public/private partnerships for human genetics studies, with a focus on type 2 diabetes and cardiometabolic diseases. Prior to her work at the Broad, Burtt joined the Whitehead Center for Genome Research in 1999 to help develop and scale technologies for genotyping and sequencing, tools that were used in some of the first genome-wide association studies (GWAS). Burtt has also managed two public-private partnerships with Novartis and Pfizer as part of the effort to use human genetics to develop better therapies for diabetes. She has contributed to more than 126 publications of genomic studies of diabetes, obesity, cancer, cardiovascular disease, and other disorders.

Jason Flannick is an assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and the Division of Genetics and Genomics at Boston Children’s Hospital, and an associate member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Flannick received his B.A. in computer science, mathematics, and physics from Cornell University. Flannick later earned his M.S. and Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford University, writing his thesis on approaches to compare protein interaction networks across different species. He spent four years as a postdoctoral fellow in statistical and computational genetics in David Altshuler’s laboratory at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Broad Institute. The Flannick Lab develops computational approaches to use human genetic and broader genomic data to understand or better treat human diseases, with a current focus on diabetes.