Sara Byron, Ph.D.

Dr. Sara Byron is a Research Associate Professor and Director of the Bioinnovation and Genome Sciences Division at TGen.

Dr. Byron received her Ph.D. in Pharmacology from the University of Minnesota, where she focused on understanding how certain proteins, like the insulin-like growth factor receptor, contribute to breast cancer. She joined TGen in 2006 as a postdoctoral fellow, where she studied how genomic changes influence cancer in women. Her early work included exploring mutations in the FGFR2 gene in gynecological cancers and investigating epigenetic regulation in breast cancer.

Today, Dr. Byron leads a research program focused on genomics and precision oncology. She is interested in understanding the genomic mechanisms contributing to cancer and how this information can be leveraged to improve care for individual patients with cancer. Her team participates in molecular tumor boards, providing clinical decision support through review of genomic results for individual pediatric and adult cancer patients. They leverage computational tools and integrated multi-omic analyses of cancer cohorts to identify and better understand the genomic features contributing to cancer development, progression, and treatment response. Her research interests include rare cancers, women’s cancers, and cancer health disparities.