Karen currently leads 4 bioinformatics groups comprising Computational Biologists, Research Programmers and Supervisors with specialties in software development, high throughput clinical and research bioinformatic analysis and integrative analysis. These groups create and operate robust high throughput analysis pipelines that support programs such as the BC Cancer Personalized OncoGenomics Program, and Hereditary Cancer Program as well as work for internal and external Principal Investigator groups.
Karen has spent over 25 years in the field of genomics at 2 internationally recognized genome centres. The focus of her work has been on improving human health; from generating high quality reference genomes to better understand disease, to integrated analysis for personalized medicine. Karen’s career began at the Sanger Centre (now the Wellcome Sanger Institute) where the focus of her group’s work was on generating high quality reference genomes of model organisms including Saccharomyces cerevisiae (baker’s yeast) as well as reference genomes for diseases that are of fundamental importance for human health, including the causative agents of tuberculosis, plague, typhoid fever, whooping cough, diphtheria, meningitis and malaria.
