Sherryl Taylor

Area of Study / Keywords

Molecular Genetics Inherited Disease Knowledge Sharing Clinical Service Delivery Education

About

Dr. Sherryl (Sherry) Taylor is currently Professor Emerita in Medical Genetics in the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry.

Dr. Taylor is retired from a career which spanned more than 30 years as a clinical molecular geneticist and academic faculty member focused on the delivery of molecular genetic diagnostic testing for inherited disease and cancer, teaching and administration.  She received her PhD from Queen’s University (Kingston, Ontario) in 1990 in which she identified mutations in the Factor VIII and Factor IX genes causing Hemophilia A and B. After which she undertook a postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. James Gusella in the Neurogenetics Unit at Harvard Medical School in Boston and was a member of the team which cloned the gene for Huntington disease.  On her return to Canada, she completed her Canadian College of Medical Geneticists (CCMG) fellowship in Molecular Genetics.  She is currently a Fellow (Molecular Genetics) of the CCMG and a European registered Clinical Laboratory Geneticist. 

Since the early 1990’s she has held leadership positions in clinical molecular genetics laboratories and genetic and genomic diagnostic laboratory services in the Canadian provinces of Ontario, New Brunswick and Alberta. In 2023 she retired from clinical service.  She has been an faculty member in the Department of Medical Genetics and cross appointed to Laboratory Medicine and Pathology in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Alberta. In 2023 she became a Professor Emerita in the Department of Medical Genetics. 

In addition to her experience in molecular genetic service Dr. Taylor has served on multiple government committees related to genetic and genomic services and education throughout her career.  As part of that work, she had a leadership role implementing familial cancer testing across all genetic diagnostic laboratories in Ontario in the early 2000’s.  She has also had a leading role in undergraduate medical education, developing, implementing and overseeing curriculum at Queen’s University, Dalhousie University and the University of Alberta and a continuing interest in genetics education for health care providers. Her research activities have been focused on cancer, including inherited cancers and studies of epigenetic changes as early field effects in colorectal cancer as well as implementation of exome and genome sequencing and knowledge sharing in genetic variant analysis through the CFI funded Canadian Open Genetics Repository and Canadian Genome Data Commons.   Currently she is the lead for the European Molecular Quality Network team for Familial Polyposis and is a member of the World Health Organization Technical Advisory Group on Genomics.

Research

Currently I am participating as a team member on a CFI funded national program to develop a Canadian Genome Data Commons (CGDC).  The CGDC proposes to establish a Canadian digital infrastructure whose goal is to employ innovative methods to transfer genomic data from the research and healthcare settings to a high-performance computing infrastructure that will support national data-sharing.   This mirrors other efforts globally such as those in the UK, Europe, Africa and Australasia. The CGDC will comprise two genomic databases and multiple software tools as core facilities to advance these goals. These shared capabilities support three goals.  First, to provide standardized variant interpretations and frequency estimates to promote the understanding of the relationship between genes and disease and to support clinical genomics laboratories and research.  Second, to establish a common access and consent tools for matching Canadian patients to others with similar clinical presentations and genetic variants from across the world for use by Canadian clinical genetics programs. Lastly, the ability to access data on the extent of human genetic variation in Canadian enhances Canadian genomic research, promotes high-performance computing capacity, maximizes the value of existing genomic data cohorts, and strengthens Canada's position as a leader in gene-discovery and as a provider of high quality clinical genomic testing for healthcare.      

Teaching

My current course related teaching is for MDGEN403/CELL403:  Principles in Medical Genetics

Course description: The rapid expansion of our understanding of the human genome has created new, exciting possibilities to understanding the root causes of human disease and improve health. However, this also leads to real and potential problems – both ethical and practical.  This senior level undergraduate course will consist of four modules each covering different aspects of genomic structure and function with focus on diagnostics and human disease. The course provides an in-depth review of scientific theory underlying the practice of Medical Genetics.  Topics will include core concepts in human genomics, developmental genetics, genetic variation, Mendelian and non-Mendelian traits, Mendelian disease as examples of key genomic concepts, methodologies that allow for screening of genetic disease and the theory supporting the practice of genetic counselling.