Katherine Richardson's Biography

Katherine Richardson, Vice President, Research & Development, Transgenomic, Inc.

Dr. Richardson holds an SB degree in Life Sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a PhD in Molecular Cellular and Developmental Biology from Iowa State University. Prior to joining Transgenomic Dr. Richardson was a scientist at Eli Lilly and Company for nine years as a senior toxicologist specializing in genetic toxicology and molecular carcinogenesis of spontaneous mouse liver tumors. In addition, she was part of the Eli Lilly/Myriad Genetics working group that identified the link between the BRCA-1 gene and hereditary breast cancer. She worked at NexStar, Gilead and then OSI Pharmaceuticals, where she specialized in molecular biology research and development in the area of incorporation of modified nucleosides by human polymerases. She helped in the development of the molecular diagnostics division of OSI where she worked with both Roche Pharmaceuticals and Genetech on the RADIANT Clinical Trial. For this clinical trial, she helped develop mutation detection assays for evaluating the correlation of mutations in EGFR exons 18-21 and KRAS exons 2 and 3 with respect to Traceva treatment of patients with non-small cell lung cancer. Since joining Transgenomic, she has been responsible for projects relating to sensitive detection of low level mutations, as well as working with various pharmaceutical companies to customize mutation detection assays for their clinical trials. This research has culminated in several patent filings and in the development and launch of multiplexed ICE COLD PCR as a mutation enrichment process which enables increased sensitivity of detection of low level mutations for all mutation detection platforms. These assays are also available in kit format (Transgenomic’s ICEme Kits).