Dr. Michele Caggana, ScD, FACMG, is currently the chief of the Laboratory of Human Genetics at the Wadsworth Center at the New York State Department and is the deputy director for the Division of Genetics and head of the Genetic Testing Section for the Clinical Laboratory Evaluation Program. She was appointed as director of the Newborn Screening Program in 2006. Dr. Caggana joined the Wadsworth Center as a research scientist in 1996 after receiving her doctoral degree from the Harvard University, School of Public Health in ScD, Radiation, and Cancer Biology and completing post-doctoral work in molecular virology at Wadsworth Center and clinical molecular genetics at the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine.
Currently, Dr. Caggana’s laboratory is working to understand how human genetic variation influences disease susceptibility, morbidity, and outcome by studying the relationships between gene variants and environmental factors. Dr. Caggana has co-authored multiple papers in the fields of molecular biology and genetics, including work on Lysosomal Storage Disorders and cost effective and scalable DNA Extraction Methods. She was the principal investigator of a national study for a SCID Pilot that was awarded to the Wadsworth Center- New York State Department of Health Department and included state participation from California, Louisiana, the Wisconsin Newborn Screening Program, Puerto Rico, New England Newborn Screening Program, and New York.
Dr. Caggana has contributed a great amount of research to the Newborn Screening world and the NBSTRN is pleased to congratulate her as the spotlight researcher of the month.Â
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