Elizabeth Swisher, MD

Dr. Swisher is a Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Division of Gynecologic Oncology and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Medical Genetics at the University of Washington. She graduated with a B.S. from Yale University and received her M.D. from the University of California at San Diego. She completed her residency at the University of Washington in Ob/Gyn and a fellowship in Gynecologic Oncology at Washington University St Louis. Both her clinical and laboratory work focus on cancer genetics. She is medical director of the Breast and Ovarian Cancer Prevention Program at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. The primary focus of Dr. Swisher’s lab is to study the molecular genetics of ovarian cancer, including understanding the early events of ovarian tumorigenesis and development of novel biomarkers of disease and prognosis. Recently, she has used massively parallel sequencing to identify a broader inherited component of ovarian, fallopian tube and peritoneal cancers than previously appreciated with the goal of allowing targeted prevention in at risk women. She has been applying targeted deep sequencing to ovarian cancers with the goal of personalizing therapeutic choices. The OCRF grant will support the collaboration of Dr. Swisher’s group with that of Scott Kaufmann M.D. PhD and Paul Haluska M.D. PhD, both of the Mayo Clinic in the effort to develop biomarkers that predict response to PARP inhibitors and platinum chemotherapy.