Jay Shendure elected to National Academy of Medicine

Dr. Jay A. Shendure, professor of genome sciences at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, is one of 100 newly elected members of the National Academy of Medicine. The Academy announced the list of new members this week during its annual meeting.

His selection brings to 35 the number of National Academy of Medicine members from the University of Washington School of Medicine. 

The National Academy of Medicine is an independent, nonprofit organization committed to nonpartisan, evidence-based leadership. The Academy aims to advance science, inform policy, and catalyze action to obtain optimal health for all. Its members include some of the nation’s foremost scholars, innovators, and business leaders dedicated to scientific excellence.

Election to the Academy is deemed one of the highest honors in health and medicine in recognition of outstanding professional achievement and public service. 

Shendure directs the Allen Discovery Center for Cell Lineage at the Allen Institute and the Brotman Baty Institute for Precision Medicine. He is also a scientific director of the Seattle Hub for Synthetic Biology, and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

He is known for pioneering the second wave of genomics technologies for gene discovery, and for leading collaborative research across several scientific institutions in the Seattle area.

By using techniques that allowed for the simultaneous analysis of millions of DNA fragments, his team contributed to making genome sequencing faster and more affordable. 

His work on next-generation DNA sequencing and exome sequencing of the protein-coding regions also has led to genetic discoveries in the fields of cancer and autism, as well as in Mendelian, or single-gene, inherited disorders. The approach has been used to find the causative genes for many congenital conditions, such as  Miller syndrome and Kabuki syndrome. 

His lab developed non-invasive medical diagnostics based on cell-free DNA analyses for prenatal testing and cancer detection, or so-called “liquid biopsies.” His work on tools, such as DNA Typewriter, to track a cell’s biological history by recording barcodes onto its DNA, holds promise in the field of synthetic biology. The gathering of such a timeline could suggest ways to direct cell activities.

His development of more rapid and efficient lab techniques has also improved the understanding of gene function and regulation, as well as the mapping of embryonic development based on studies of individual cells and cell lineages as new life takes shape. 

A native of Ohio, Shendure attended college at Princeton University, where he graduated in 1996 summa cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in molecular biology. He then completed a Fulbright Scholarship in the Department of Pediatrics at Sassoon General Hospital Pune, India. He subsequently entered the Medical Scientist Training Program in the Department of Genetics at Harvard Medical School in Boston. There he received a Ph.D. in genetics in 2005 and an M.D. in 2007. His research adviser at Harvard was George M. Church, a leader in biologically inspired engineering.

Shendure joined the faculty of the University of Washington School of Medicine in 2007.

Among his honors are the Curt Stern Award (2012) from the American Society for Human Genetics, the Richard Lounsbery Award (2019) from the National Academy of Sciences, and the Mendel Award (2022) from the European Society of Human Genetics.

Shendure was elected to the National Academy of Science in 2019. 

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