Title: "Rare Genetic Variants: From Discovery To Function"
Speaker: Scott Younger, PhD, Director, Disease Gene Engineering – Children’s Mercy Kansas City
Date: April 29, 2025, noon-1 p.m.
Location: Roy Blunt NextGen Precision Health Building, Atkins Family Seminar Room
*Zoom option available
Register Here
Description
Rare diseases often send families on a years-long search for answers. The Genomic Answers for Kids initiative at Children's Mercy Kansas City is working to change that by sequencing the genomes of 30,000 children impacted by rare genetic conditions.
Dr. Scott Younger, Director of Disease Gene Engineering, is developing breakthrough technologies to accelerate rare variant interpretation and personalized therapeutics. Join us for a free talk with Dr. Younger as he discusses how patient-derived cellular models are being used to study disease development and test therapeutic interventions. That process once took a year and cost $10,000, but today it takes two weeks and costs just $200.
“Being embedded in a pediatric hospital allows us to work directly with clinicians, ensuring that our research translates into real-world patient care,” says Dr. Younger.
About the Speaker
Dr. Scott Younger is the Director of Disease Gene Engineering within the Genomic Medicine Center at Children's Mercy Kansas City. He has extensive experience working with high-throughput sequencing-based screening technologies and is leading efforts to dissect the molecular mechanisms through which rare genetic variants identified in patients at Children's Mercy lead to disease.
Dr. Younger came to Children's Mercy from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard where his group worked on the development of new methodologies to expand the utility of CRISPR-based genetic screens. Prior to working at the Broad Institute he completed his postdoctoral studies at Harvard University as an American Cancer Society Fellow. He holds a Ph.D. in cell and molecular biology from UT Southwestern Medical Center. He also received an M.S. in biotechnology from the University of Texas at San Antonio and a B.S.I. in bioinformatics from Baylor University.
About the Discovery Series
The NextGen Precision Health Discovery Series provides learning opportunities for UM System faculty and staff across disciplines, the statewide community and our other partners to learn about the scope of precision health research and identify potential collaborative opportunities. The series consists of monthly lectures geared toward a broad multidisciplinary audience so all can participate and appreciate the spectrum of precision health efforts.
For questions about this event or any others in the Discovery Series, please reach out to Mackenzie Lynch.
Reviewed 2025-02-21