Alison Coffey
Human genetics
Although she did not want to become a doctor, Alison became interested in disease and its underlying mechanisms from a young age. Alison initially trained in biochemistry and her first job was to work on the structure and function of the Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy gene. From here, she went on to focus on a potentially fatal condition in young boys called Duncan's disease and isolated the gene involved, called SH2D1A. Alison led the operations of the team that sequenced the human X chromosome, and then began a project looking at variation across the whole genome. This expanded into looking for genes involved in disease using sequencing as a tool.
