Mira Irons, MD
Program Director; Residency Director; Boston Children’s Hospital
Dr. Irons is a distinguished clinical geneticist and pediatrician, serving as the Associate Chief of the Division of Genetics and Genomics at Boston Children’s Hospital, a faculty member at Harvard Medical School, and the Program Director for the Harvard Medical School Genetics Training Program. She earned her medical degree from Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine and completed her pediatric residency and genetic fellowships at Massachusetts General Hospital and Boston Children’s Hospital. Board-certified in Clinical Genetics, Clinical Biochemical Genetics, and Pediatrics, Dr. Irons has over 40 years of experience in academic medicine and clinical practice. She has held leadership roles in national genetics organizations, including the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG), and has made significant contributions to clinical care, education, and advocacy in genetics and genomics.
Cynthia C. Morton, PhD
Education Director
Cynthia Morton, Ph.D. is the William Lambert Richardson Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology and Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School, Associate Director of the Partners HealthCare Personalized Medicine and Director of Cytogenetics at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Her research interests are in molecular cytogenetics, hereditary deafness, genetics of uterine leiomyomata, hereditary hearing loss, and cytogenetic approaches to gene discovery for developmental disorders. Her full-time academic laboratory contributed to the development of diagnostic testing for chromosome studies that cross the lifespan, which include preimplantation and prenatal diagnostics, perinatal and childhood studies in the evaluation of congenital and developmental disorders, infertility and pregnancy loss studies, and cytogenetics of leukemias, lymphomas and solid tumors. Her laboratory has been a major site for training laboratory geneticists in clinical cytogenetics.
Daniela Grunfeld
Program Coordinator
Daniela Grunfeld joined the Harvard Medical School Training Program as the program coordinator on September 2019. She is in charge of administrative logistics of the program. She coordinates the training program with all faculty, fellows and administrative staff at the affiliated institutions.
Wen-Hann Tan, MBBS
Course Director, Advanced Human Genetics Course
Dr. Wen-Hann Tan is a clinical geneticist at Boston Children’s Hospital who is interested in a broad variety of genetic conditions including genodermatoses, vascular anomalies, pediatric cancer predisposition syndromes, the ASXL group of disorders, and all things ultra-rare. He leads a clinical research program that focuses on Angelman syndrome and is actively involved in observational / natural history studies as well as various clinical trials in Angelman syndrome, including the use of antisense oligonucleotides (ASO). He is also the site PI of a gene therapy trial in ornithine transcarbamylase (OTC) deficiency.
Gretchen Schneider, MS, CGC
Co-Director, Advanced Human Genetic Course
Anne Giersch, PhD
Director, Laboratory Genetics Genomics
Azra Ligon is the Director of the Cytogenetics Laboratory at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and oversees training in the HMS ABMG Clinical Cytogenetics program. Dr. Ligon received her Ph.D. in Cancer Biology from the University of Texas/M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in 1995. She completed her Medical Genetics training at Baylor College of Medicine in 1997 and, after a research postdoctoral fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), joined the Staff of the BWH Cytogenetics Laboratory in 1999 as an ABMG-certified Clinical Cytogeneticist. In 2003, she assumed leadership of the HMS ABMG Cytogenetics training program. Dr. Ligon’s research activities include translation of basic research findings into clinical diagnostics, especially those relevant to the area of cancer diagnostics.
Stephanie Sacharow, MD
Director, Medical Biochemical Genetics Fellowship Program
Dr. Sacharow is a medical biochemical geneticist and metabolic specialist at Boston Children’s Hospital, serving as the Medical Director of the PAL Clinic and Director of the Dr. Harvey Levy Program for Phenylketonuria and Related Conditions. She earned her medical degree from the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and completed her residency and fellowship at Jackson Memorial Hospital/University of Miami. Board-certified in Clinical Biochemical Genetics, Clinical Genetics, and Pediatrics, Dr. Sacharow has expertise in the management of metabolic diseases including phenylketonuria and homocystinuria. Before joining Boston Children’s and Harvard Medical School faculty in 2015, she was instrumental in implementing expanded newborn screening for metabolic disorders in South Florida. Dr. Sacharow has published extensively, is a co-investigator in multiple clinical trials, and has expertise in pegvaliase (Palynziq) therapy, co-authoring national management guidelines. She is a sought-after speaker at national and international conferences, committed to advancing patient care, research, and education in genetics and metabolism.
Amy Roberts, MD
Co-Director, Pediatrics/Medical Genetics Residency
Amy Roberts, M.D., is a cardiovascular clinical geneticist and supervises trainees in the clinic and on the inpatient consult service. She also teaches in the Advanced Human Genetics course. She is conducting research on genotype-phenotype correlations in Noonan syndrome and congenital heart disease gene discovery. She co-directs the combined Pediatrics/Clinical Genetics residency training program with Ted Sectish, M.D. at Boston Children’s Hospital. She co-directs the combined Maternal Fetal Medicine/Medical Genetics fellowship with Louise Wilkins-Haug, M.D. at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Roy Peake, PhD
Director, Clinical Biochemical Genetics Fellowship Program
Roy Peake received his PhD from Queen’s University of Belfast, Northern Ireland, and began his career as a clinical biochemist in the UK’s National Health Service. He completed fellowships in Clinical Chemistry at Boston Children’s Hospital and in Clinical Biochemical Genetics at Harvard Medical School. He is currently the Director of the Biochemical Genetics Laboratory and Associate Director of Clinical Chemistry in the Department of Laboratory Medicine, as well as an Assistant Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Peake is board certified in both Clinical Chemistry and Clinical Biochemical Genetics and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists. He serves as Training Director for the ABMGG-accredited Clinical Biochemical Genetics Training Program and is an Associate Editor for Clinical Chemistry. His research focuses on developing new diagnostic methods for inborn errors of metabolism using chromatography-mass spectrometry.