Mary-Claire King

Mary-Claire King, PhD, is a geneticist. She was the first to show that breast cancer is inherited in some families, as the result of mutations in the gene that she named BRCA1. In addition to inherited breast and ovarian cancer, her research interests include the genetic bases of schizophrenia, the genetic causes of birth disorders in children, and human genetic diversity and evolution. She pioneered the use of DNA sequencing for human rights investigations, developing the approach of sequencing mitochondrial DNA preserved in human remains, then applying this method to the identification of kidnapped children in Argentina and subsequently to cases of human rights violations on six continents.

Dr. King grew up in Chicago and received her PhD in Genetics from the University of California at Berkeley; and her postdoctoral training at UC San Francisco.  Her PhD dissertation was the demonstration that protein-coding sequences of humans and chimpanzees are 99% identical.  She was professor at UC Berkeley from 1976-1995 and at the University of Washington in Seattle since 1995.

Dr. King has served on multiple councils and study sections of the N.I.H. and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. She was consultant to the Commission on the Disappearance of Persons of the Republic of Argentina and carried out DNA identifications for the United Nations War Crimes Tribunals. She is past president of the American Society of Human Genetics and a past member of the Council of the National Academy of Sciences.

In addition to the National Academy of Sciences, Dr. King has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, the American Philosophical Society, and as a foreign member of the French Academy of Sciences. Her awards include the Lasker Foundation Special Achievement Award for Medical Research, and the United States National Medal of Science.