Starita Lab

A significant barrier to the practice of precision medicine is our inability to interpret the genetic variation identified by genome sequencing. The Starita lab aims to develop the technology required to understand that variation, down to the single nucleotide level. We have applied Multiplexed Assays for Variant Effect to genes important for understanding cancer risk, such as BRCA1 and genes important for understanding drug metabolism, such as TPMT. Our current goal is to develop the next generation of Multiplexed Assays for Variant Effect with richer, more informative phenotypes and the ability to assess complex genotypes.

Lea Starita, Ph.D.

Dr. Starita is a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Genome Sciences at the University of Washington and the Co-director of Brotman Baty Advanced Technology Lab. She earned her Ph.D. from Harvard Medical School before coming to the University of Washington to train in functional genomics with Stan Fields and Jay Shendure.

UW

Visit the Brotman Baty Institute website

Publications


Research Papers

On the design of CRISPR-based single-cell molecular screens. Nature Methods 2018.

Multiplex assessment of protein variant abundance by massively parallel sequencing. Nature Genetics 2018.

A multiplexed homology-directed DNA repair assay reveals the impact of ~1,700 BRCA1 variants on protein function. bioRxiv 2018.

Accurate functional classification of thousands of BRCA1 variants with saturation genome editing. bioRxiv 2018.

Massively Parallel Functional Analysis of BRCA1 RING Domain Variants. Genetics 2015.

Activity-enhancing mutations in an E3 ubiquitin ligase identified by high-throughput mutagenesis. PNAS 2014.

Massively parallel single-amino-acid mutagenesis. Nature 2014.

Reviews and Perspectives

Variant Interpretation: Functional Assays to the Rescue. AJHG 2017.

Bedside Back to Bench: Building Bridges between Basic and Clinical Genomic Research. Cell 2017.

The power of multiplexed functional analysis of genetic variants. Nature Protocols 2016.