Christina A. Harrington, Ph.D.

  • Research Associate Professor of Molecular and Medical Genetics, School of Medicine
  • Associate Director, Integrated Genomics Laboratory, IG.Integrated Genomics
  • Special Projects, Shared Resources, OHSU Knight Cancer Institute, School of Medicine

Biography

Dr. Harrington is the associate director of the Integrated Genomics Laboratory at OHSU and a research associate professor in the Department of Molecular and Medical Genetics. She also leads special projects in shared resources at the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute.

Dr. Harrington directed the Gene Profiling Shared Resource at OHSU for over two decades and led the DNA Services Core from 2014 - 2023. Until July 2022, she oversaw the Integrated Genomics Lab (IGL), a centralized laboratory for next-generation sequencing, DNA microarray, high-throughput real-time PCR technologies and RNA and DNA processing services comprised of the Massively Parallel Sequencing Shared Resource, the Gene Profiling Shared Resource, and the DNA Services Core.  In her current role with the IGL, she is responsible for outreach and education.  She has worked in the field of gene regulation and with RNA and DNA analysis technologies throughout her research career.  Her technical experience includes DNA microarrays, real-time PCR, and sequencing. At OHSU she initially set up and managed the Affymetrix microarray core in 2000 and has continued to expand resources and expertise for core users seeking services and support for high-throughput, genome-wide analyses of RNA and DNA. She served as the associate director for shared resources for the Knight Cancer Institute from 2020 through 2023.

Before joining OHSU, Dr. Harrington was employed at Affymetrix from 1997 through 2000, as a senior staff scientist and manager of the Scientific Liaison Group. In this capacity, she was involved in the development of the GeneChip array expression profiling application. She was responsible for the Affymetrix Academic User Center, a program of research collaborations with academic investigators. Before her position at Affymetrix, Dr. Harrington worked in the field of molecular neurobiology, from 1995-1997 as a research officer at the Garvan Institute for Medical Research in Sydney, Australia, and earlier as a principal research fellow in the Laboratory for Molecular Pharmacology, University College, London, United Kingdom.

Dr. Harrington has a Ph.D. in molecular, cellular and developmental biology from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and a bachelor's degree in biology from California Institute of Technology. In addition to overseeing the operation of the IGL and the GPSR for many years, Dr. Harrington has collaborated with many research groups on campus to apply RNA and DNA analysis techniques to important questions in biomedical research. Recent publications include work examining transcriptomic analysis of archival samples (Pennock et al., BMC Medical Genomics, 2020), cerebral spinal fluid for small RNA biomarkers of Alzheimer's disease (Lusardi et al., J Alzheimer's Disease, 2016, and Sandau et al., 2020), and identification of gene expression changes that may provide diagnostic information for patients with inflammatory disease (Rosenbaum et al., JAMA Ophthalmology, 2015 and Am. Journal of Ophthalmology, 2021).  In addition, she is a collaborator on the Healthy Oregon Project (O'Brien et al., Am Journal of Human Genetics, 2023).

Education and training

    • Ph.D., 1982, Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder

Areas of interest

  • genomics technology, gene expression regulation, biomarkers, research core facilities

Publications

Publications

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