Computational geneticist Pardis Sabeti doesn't aspire to advance medical research- she's already done it. In 2001, she developed a breakthrough algorithm that allows geneticists to scan for genes that reveal natural selection at work- a crucial key to understanding how certain mutations increase a person's odds of surviving a disease. Pardis, an Associate Professor of Biology at Harvard, studies both how humans develop resistance to disease and how diseases mutate to resist treatment. Through study of the human genome, Pardis hopes to outsmart deadly diseases such as malaria and Lassa fever. P
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