The FindMyVariant team is a group centered at the University of Washington dedicated to helping patients and families understand unique genetic variants. The initial website is supported by the University of Washington, Department of Laboratory Medicine and by a Grant Innovator grant from the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation.
Who We Are
Leadership
Brian Shirts, MD, PhD
Dr. Shirts is an Assistant Professor of Laboratory Medicine at the University of Washington. His research focuses on integrating complex genetics knowledge into clinical care. His main goals are to improve strategies to classify rare variants and to improve the clinical use of complex genetic information as presented to both patients and clinicians. In his clinical role, he is one of a small group of geneticists and laboratory pathologists who supervise BROCA and ColoSeqTM tests for hereditary cancer risk at the University of Washington.
Ginger J. Tsai, MS, LCGC
Ginger is an ABGC Certified Genetic Counselor licensed in the state of Washington. She earned a Master of Science in Genetic Counseling from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. She has experience in clinical genetic counseling for aortic and vascular disease and identification of novel genes through genetics research studies. Her work at the Department of Laboratory Medicine at the University of Washington focuses on variant classification and interpretation.
Contributors
Lauren Thomas Garrett, MS, LCGC
Nathan Hickman
Content Review
Laura Amendola, MS, LCGC
Robin Bennett, MS, LCGC, PhD Hon
Deborah Bowen, PhD
Malia Fullerton, PhD
Angela Jacobson, MS, LCGC