Functional genomics technologies are constantly expanding and improving, creating exciting opportunities for discovery. The Broad Institute’s Genetic Perturbation Platform is developing these technologies and applying them to investigate gene function in diverse areas of mammalian biology. Recent improvements in CRISPR technologies and screens including for generation and screening of variants will be described along with examples of their applications, including the Cancer Dependency Map.
David Root is an Institute Scientist and Senior Director of the Genetic Perturbation Platform and the Functional Genomics Consortium at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. He earned his Ph.D. in physical chemistry from Stanford University. Since launching his platform and consortium at the Broad in 2004, Dr. Root has been instrumental in creating widely used libraries and tools for functional genomics, including RNA interference, gene expression, and CRISPR-based screens. Many of these tools have been made readily accessible, accelerating functional genomics research in various areas of biology, such as cancer, immunology, metabolism, and infectious disease worldwide.
