| Pardis C. Sabeti D.Phil. (Oxon), M.D. | |
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Pardis Sabeti at PopTech 2011.
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| Born | 25 December 1975 Tehran, Iran |
| Fields | Evolutionary genetics Genetic epidemiology Computational biology Biological anthropology Bioinformatics Medical genetics |
| Institutions | Harvard University Broad Institute |
| Alma mater | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (B.Sc.) University of Oxford (M.Sc.), (D.Phil.) Harvard Medical School (M.D.) |
| Notable awards | Rhodes Scholarship |
Pardis C. Sabeti (Persian: پردیس ثابتی) (born December 25, 1975) is an Iranian American computational biologist, medical geneticist and evolutionary geneticist, who developed a bioinformatic statistical method which identifies sections of the genome that have been subject to natural selection and an algorithm which explains the effects of genetics on the evolution of disease.[1][2][3] Sabeti is an Assistant Professor in the Center for Systems Biology and Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and on the faculty of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics at the Harvard School of Public Health at Harvard University and is a Senior Associate Member of the Broad Institute.[4]
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Sabeti was born in 1975 in Tehran, Iran.[5] Sabeti studied biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in 1997 where she was a Teaching Assistant and the Class President[6], and was then a Rhodes Scholar in Biological Anthropology and Evolutionary Genetics at University of Oxford and completed her Doctorate in 2002, and graduated summa cum laude with a Doctor of Medicine from Harvard Medical School in 2006.[7] She has received a Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award in the Biomedical Sciences.[8]
Sabeti is also the lead singer and bass player of the rock band Thousand Days.[2]
As a postdoctoral fellow with Eric Lander at the Broad Institute, Sabeti modified a family of previously developed statistical tests for positive selection that look for common genetic variants found on unusually long haplotypes. Her test, known as the cross population extended haplotype homozygosity test, or XP-EHH, was designed to detect advantageous mutations whose frequency in human populations has risen rapidly over the last 10,000 years.
The XP-EHH test, in combination with existing methods, recovered several known targets of recent natural selection, and suggested several novel targets. She also identified two variants in the genes LARGE and DMD, known to be involved in infection by Lassa fever, that show strong signals of natural selection in West Africans.[3][9]