Sarah Tishkoff
University of Pennsylvania
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Primary Section: 51, Anthropology Secondary Section: 26, Genetics Membership Type:
Member
(elected 2017)
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Biosketch
Sarah Tishkoff is the David and Lyn Silfen University Professor in Genetics and Biology at the University of Pennsylvania, holding appointments in the School of Medicine and the School of Arts and Sciences. She is also Director of the Penn Center for Global Genomics and Health Equity. Dr. Tishkoff studies genomic and phenotypic variation in ethnically diverse Africans. Her research combines field work, laboratory research, and computational methods to examine African population history and how genetic variation can affect a wide range of traits – for example, why humans have different susceptibility to disease, how they metabolize drugs, and how they adapt through evolution. Dr. Tishkoff is a recipient of an NIH Pioneer Award, a David and Lucile Packard Career Award, a Burroughs/Wellcome Fund Career Award, an ASHG Curt Stern award, and a Penn Integrates Knowledge (PIK) endowed chair. She is a member of the Scientific Advisory Panel for the Packard Fellowships for Science and Engineering, the Board of Global Health at the National Academy of Sciences, the Jackson Labs, and the Lewis Sigler Institute at Princeton and is on the editorial boards at PLOS Genetics, Genome Research, G3 (Genes, Genomes, and Genetics) and Cell.
Research Interests
Dr. Tishkoff's research combines field work, laboratory work, and computational approaches to address fundamental questions about modern human evolutionary history and the genetic architecture of traits related to adaptation and disease risk in Africa. Her research groups uses an integrative genomics approach, incorporating genomic, proteomic, epigenetic, transcriptomic, metabolomic, and microbiome data obtained from ethnically diverse Africans living in distinct environments to identify genetic and environmental factors that play a role in a number of anthropometric, metabolomic, cardiovascular, and immune related traits.
