Elaine Ostrander

Elaine Ostrander
Born	1958 (age 57–58) Syracuse, New York
Fields	Genetics Genomics Cancer Biology
Institutions	National Institutes of Health National Human Genome Research Institute
Alma mater	Oregon Health & Science University University of Washington Harvard University
Known for	Research on prostate cancer Conducting genetic investigations with the canis familiaris, the domestic dog model
Notable awards	Fellow at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2013) Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Kennel Club 2013 Genetics Society of America Medal

Elaine Ann Ostrander is an American geneticist at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland ^[1][2] She holds a number of professional academic appointments, currently serving as senior scientist and head of the NHGRI Section of Comparative Genomics; Chief of the NHGRI Cancer Genetics Branch; and Chief of the Cancer Genetics and Comparative Genomics Branch. She is known for her research on prostate cancer and for conducting genetic investigations with the canis familiaris, the domestic dog model,^[3] used to study disease susceptibility and frequency and other aspects of natural variation in mammals. In 2007, her laboratory showed that most of the variation in body size of domestic dogs is due to differences in a single gene encoding a growth-promoting protein.^[4]

Early life

Ostrander was born in Syracuse, New York in 1958. Her father was a librarian and her mother was a school administrator. The family lived in New Jersey, Nebraska, and then Washington.^[5] She has a sister and a brother, marine biologist Gary Ostrander.^[5] She attended high school at Eisenhower High School (Yakima, Washington).

Education

Ostrander received her Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Washington in Seattle. In 1987, she was awarded a Ph.D. from the Oregon Health Sciences University (now known as the Oregon Health & Science University) in Portland. She completed postdoctoral training in molecular biology at Harvard. From 1991-1993, she was a staff scientist in the Genetics and Human Genome Project at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California. At Berkeley, she worked in the laboratory of Jasper Rine, where the dog genome project originated.^[6][7][8]

Career

Ostrander received her Ph.D. from the Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland, Oregon and did her postdoctoral training at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She then went to the University of California, Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley National Labs. There, with collaborators, she began the canine genome project and built the canine linkage and radiation hybrid maps.^[9] Ostrander also held academic appointments at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington and the University of Washington for 12 years, where she rose to the rank of member in the Human Biology and Clinical Research Divisions and head of the Genetics Program.

She came to the NIH in 2004. At NHGRI, she holds a number of professional academic appointments, serving as senior scientist and head of the Section of Comparative Genetics; Chief of the Cancer Genetics Branch; and Chief of the Cancer Genetics and Comparative Genomics Branch. She is also an NHGRI grant recipient.

Ostrander has served on the faculty of a number of leading biomedical research institutions, including the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington; the University of Washington in Seattle, and NHGRI in Bethesda, Maryland. She is also affiliated as a mentor in the human genetics predoctoral training program at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. Her professional academic responsibilities continue to extend into a number of leadership roles in planning, search, peer review, and tenure and promotion efforts at a number of scientific institutions, including NHGRI; the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine;^[10] the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington; the U.S. Department of Defense (various). At present, she also oversees admissions for the NIH-Graduate/Cambridge Program.

The NHGRI Dog Genome Project

The primary goal of this project is to help develop the necessary resources for mapping and cloning canine genes. This will aid in the effort to use dogs as a systematic model for genetics and cancer research.^[11] Other objectives include detecting canine genetic markers that are linked to inheritable diseases. With this information, the hope is use it to improve the health of the canine population and reach a greater understanding of the different types of diseases that affect the canine genome.^[12]

The group examines variations across 175 recognized by U.S. breeders.^[9] Utilizing this large group containing many variations, their focus is on finding genetic markers and attempting to gain a deeper understanding of the underlying patterns of genetic information that occurs between different breeds of dogs, in both healthy and disease states.^[12]

This is an international collaboration, a team composed of researchers, technicians, veterinarians, population geneticists, molecular biologists, statisticians, and computer scientists.^[12]

Up to this point, Ostrander's group has been able to map genes that regulate variations seen in body size, leg length, skull shape, and fur type.^[9]

Research is done by collecting DNA in the form of blood samples from specific breeds of purebred, registered dogs.^[12] Health histories and pedigrees are also collected as well. Over time, diseases may emerge in the dogs that can be compared to the human equivalent. So far, the group have been able to in identifying genes linked to etinitis pigmentosum, epilepsy, kidney cancer, soft tissue sarcomas and squamous cell cancers.^[9] These results have been published in both human and veterinary literature. The reason being that the genes causing the disease in dogs are the same ones found in humans.

Honors

Ostrander has presented her research at national and international scientific meetings. In 2011, she was named NIH Distinguished Investigator. She is the author of nearly 300 scientific publications that have been cited more than 3,500 times, including more than 450 citations to the 2005 paper she co-authored describing the genome sequence of the domestic dog.^[13][14]

In 1999, Ostrander was awarded the President’s Award by the American Kennel Club Canine Health Foundation, followed by the AKC Canine Health Foundation Asa Mays Award for Excellence in Canine Health Research (2005), and the Lifetime Achievement canine health award presented by the Kennel Club in 2013.^[15] She is also the recipient of the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Innovation Award in Functional Genomics and the Lifetime Achievement Award from Weill Cornell Medical College’s Prostate Cancer Institute. In 2013, she won the Genetics Society of America Medal her research on the genetic basis of phenotypic variation between dog breeds and on genome-wide associations in human cancers.^[16]

She has also served in an advisory capacity on behalf of leading professional societies, journals, and other scientific efforts in the United States, Belgium, Sweden, and elsewhere. Ostrander is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and in 2013, was inducted as a Fellow. She is a member of the American Society of Human Genetics, the American Genetic Association, the American Association for Cancer Research, Women in Cancer Research, the Genetics Society of America, and the Association for Women in Science. Ostrander served a term on the Board of Directors of the American Society of Human Genetics and in 2013 received the Genetics Society of America medal.^[17]

Patents

Ostrander holds two U.S. patents: Application 20100217534 Patent Number (20110224911) and Application 200901762555, both related to genetic identification of dog breeds.

Further reading

• Ostrander, E. A. (3 May 2012). "Missteps and mistakes, friends and heroes" (PDF). Endocrine Related Cancer. 19 (3): P5–P8. doi:10.1530/ERC-12-0027. Retrieved 19 January 2016. 
• Ostrander, Gary; Ostrander, Elaine (March 2005). "Q & A". Current Biology. 15 (5): R151–R152. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2005.02.035. 
• "LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD: DR ELAINE OSTRANDER PhD" (PDF). Retrieved 19 January 2016. 
• Hopkin, Karen (August 1, 2008). "Going to the Dogs". The Scientist. Retrieved 19 January 2016. 
• Derr, Mark (2013). A dog's history of America : how our best friend explored, conquered, and settled a continent. The Overlook Press. ISBN 9781468302660. 
• Women in Science at the National Institutes of Health, 2007-2008. Page 61. Bethesda, MD: Office of Research on Women's Health, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, 2009. Print.

References