Dr. Muhammed Murtaza has become the next director of the Center for Human Genomics and Precision Medicine at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health. Murtaza is a cancer researcher and an associate professor in the Department of Surgery at the school. Since 2021, he has served as the associate director of the center.
Murtaza’s research works to bridge gaps in cancer diagnostics by developing and testing new methods for detecting cancer that leverage an individual’s genome, which is an individual’s complete genetic information. Using these methods, his laboratory became the first to demonstrate the feasibility of using a blood test to predict success of some breast cancer treatments. One of his lab’s technologies was licensed for further development and evaluation by Madison’s Exact Sciences.
Murtaza earned his medical degree from Aga Khan University Medical College in Pakistan and a doctorate in medical science at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute at the University of Cambridge. His professional career began at the Translational Genomics Research Institute, a nonprofit medical research institution based in Arizona. He also practiced at Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona. Murtaza joined the UW School of Medicine and Public Health Department of Surgery in 2020 and was appointed associate director of the Center for Human Genomics and Precision Medicine in 2021.
