Kate Lawrenson, PhD

Dr. Lawrenson’s career has been dedicated to the study of unmet needs in women’s health. Her laboratory focuses on gene regulation endometriosis and ovarian cancer – and the pathways linking these two diseases. The multidisciplinary and collaborative research in her laboratory brings together genomics and epidemiology to identify new translational opportunities. The Lawrenson laboratory team includes both wet-lab and dry-lab researchers focused on studying the interplay between the genome, the epigenome and the transcriptome using large-scale ChIP-seq, CUT&TAG/RUN, RNA-seq, spatial in situ and single cell ‘omics’ technologies on population-based cohorts of disease relevant human tissues specimens. Candidate genes, regulatory elements and genetic variants are validated using functional assays that include organoid modeling, genome editing and in vivo modeling. Recent work from her team has been published in Nature Genetics and Cell Reports Medicine. Her research is funded by awards from the NIH, the Department of Defense, and others.

Dr Lawrenson is an Associate Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at UT Health San Antonio (UTHSA), in San Antonio, Texas, USA. Dr Lawrenson obtained her PhD in Human Genetics from University College London and performed postdoc research at the same institution and at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, USA. She spent 9 years on the faculty at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center where she was Co-Director of the Women’s Cancer Research Program and Associate Director for the Postdoctoral Scientist Program, before joining UTHSA in Spring 2024. Her leadership activities focus on building multidisciplinary teams in endometriosis and ovarian cancers, through leadership roles as Co-Director for the Center for Inherited Oncogenesis and Director of the OB/Gyn Tissue Repository and Database. She is passionate about mentorship of junior scientists, particularly women and minority groups, and serves as Associate Director for the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs. In her career to date, she has supervised 8 undergraduate students and 4 rotation graduate students, 4 PhD students, 6 postdoctoral fellows and 10 gynecologic oncology fellows, all of whom continue to have successful scientistic careers in academia or industry.

Dr. Lawrenson places a strong emphasis on contributing to the scientific community through regular service as a grant reviewer for the NIH, DOD, American Cancer Society (as a study section member) and others. She also regularly reviews manuscripts for multiple journals including Nature and Nature Genetics, and in 2023 served as a Guest Editor for a Special Issue of eLife focused on Reproductive Health.