Lisa Cannon-Albright, PhD

Dr. Albright is Director of Genetic Epidemiology, a division of the Medical Informatics Department at the University of Utah. Professor Albright also founded the Genetic Research Group at Intermountain Healthcare, Inc. in 1995, and has served as its director since its inception. She received an MS in biostatistics and a PhD in medical informatics from the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, where she has served since 1988. Dr. Albright is an excellent contributor to the field of bioinformatics. She has made major contributions to the use of clinical information systems along with computerized genealogical records to detect family relationships to diseases. Using these family relationships, she has been able to contact families and obtained permission to use blood samples to search for specific disease entities. She works as the leader of a team, initially started by Mark H. Skolnick, PhD, which has found two breast cancer genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2, and a prostate cancer gene. Dr. Albright was involved in the studies that identified the first melanoma gene, the first two breast cancer genes, and the first prostate cancer gene. She is a genetic epidemiologist whose primary research concentration is in the analysis of common disorders that appear to have a genetic component. Her research utilizes computerized medical/health records that are record-linked to a genealogical database. The analysis of the linked medical diagnoses to genealogical records can allow clarification of the genetic component of disease. These data are analyzed to identify a genetic component for a particular disease or subset of individuals with particular disease characteristics. The data are also used to ascertain the high-risk families, to study record linkages being expanded to include clinical data, to allow further characterization of cases, and to pursue analysis of drug response. Dr. Albright is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Association for Cancer Research, the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research, the American Society of Human Genetics, and the International Genetic Epidemiology Society. She serves on the Scientific Advisory Board for Intermountain Heart Study at LDS Hospital, the LDS Hospital Research and Administration Committee, the Intermountain Health Care Family Health Database Oversight Committee, and the International Consortium on Prostate Cancer Genetics. She also served on the Myriad Genetics, Inc. Scientific Advisory Board from 1997 through 2000.