Speaker Profile

Biography
Ms. Sample manages the UCSF Center for Next-Gen Precision Diagnostics. The Center is a multi-disciplinary program that spans both the UCSF School of Medicine and UCSF Health, engaging both research and clinical laboratories. Clinical diagnostics offered by the Center include metagenomic Next-Generation Sequencing (mNGS) for pathogen detection on cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) for the diagnosis of encephalitis, meningitis, and/or myelitis. The test was CLIA validated in 2015 (Miller, et al., Genome Research, 2019) and the clinical utility described on a cohort of 204 cases of acute or an acute exacerbation of encephalitis and/or meningitis was described in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2019 (Wilson and Sample, et al., NEJM, 2019). Ms. Sample’s current focus is translating innovative tools for diagnosis of neuroinflammatory diseases beyond metagenomics (i.e. host response and autoantibody detection) as well as applying genomic technologies to other disease indications. Beyond inflammatory diseases, Ms. Sample’s research interests include cross disciplinary collaboration, health equity, infectious disease, and global health.