Researcher | Research Overview
Dr. Shao is a physician-scientist at Boston Children's Hospital whose clinical and research expertise focuses on determining the causes of childhood neurogenetic disorders, with specific focus on disorders that result in brain malformations and neurodevelopmental disabilities. One aspect of her work focuses on somatic mutations, those that impact a subset of cells in the body, as it is not yet clear how often such mutations impact human disease or human phenotypic variability. Her studies of somatic mutations involve patient disease cohorts as well as direct interrogation of human brain tissue using single-cell technology. Dr. Shao is also a principal investigator for the Center for Rare Disease Brain Malformations cohort at Boston Children's Hospital which aims to determine novel genetic causes of brain malformations.
Researcher | Research Background
Dr. Shao became inspired by scientific research as an undergraduate at Rice University where she graduated summa cum laude with majors in biochemistry and statistics. Subsequently she completed the Harvard Medical Scientist Training Program where her Ph.D. explored cancer genetic susceptibilities using genome-scale experimental and computational techniques. When Dr. Shao became interest in child neurology, she leveraged her extensive genomics background to work on critical questions in neurodevelopment.