As a Diagnostic Product Development Scientist at NanoString, Sarah Church works on implementation and application of Immune Oncology, Autoimmunity and Digital Spatial Profiling platforms. Sarah is particularly invested in discovering immune biomarkers that can effectively match patients with effective therapies, avoid adverse side-effects and improve patients’ quality of life by facilitating ease of transition of research tools into clinical diagnostic assays.
Sarah received her doctorate from Oregon Health and Science University in Molecular Microbiology and Immunology where in affiliation with the Earle A. Chiles Research Institute she studied novel combination immunotherapies for treatment of cancer, overcoming suppressive factors in the tumor microenvironment and mechanisms to turn poorly immunogenic tumors into immune-sensitive tumors. During her post-doctoral fellowship she used systems biology to examine the role of the immune system in colorectal cancer and explore novel biomarkers to predict patient survival. Here she managed and executed multiple international industry and academic collaborations to be early access users of novel IO techniques, including helping to develop a prognostic diagnostic assay using NanoString technology and participating in the worldwide Immunoscore consortium.