Irene Newsham

Irene Newsham, PhD MB(ASCP)cm FACSc, joined Norwich in 2022 as a Lecturer in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, teaching Introduction to Forensics, Biochemistry and General Chemistry courses. She received her B.S. in Biochemistry from the University of Vermont and her PhD in Applied Biological Sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA.

Following post-doctoral training at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in Montreal, Canada, Dr. Newsham spent over 20 years as an NIH-funded faculty member at several universities including University of California-San Diego, Virginia Commonwealth University and UT MD Anderson Cancer Center, where her research on cancer genetics and the application of technologies for oncogenomic analysis has resulted in over 55 publications.

Dr. Newsham was also the Associate Program Director for the Molecular Genetic Technology program in the School of Health Professions at UT MD Anderson Cancer Center where she developed curriculum and taught molecular diagnostics and forensics to undergraduates interested in clinical molecular diagnostics as a profession. In 2019, Dr. Newsham earned her Certificate in Genealogy Research from Boston University’s Center for Professional Education and is currently developing Molecular Forensics and Advanced Molecular Forensics courses for both STEM majors and criminal justice/criminology majors that integrate molecular genetics and genetic genealogy practices.

Ph.D. Applied Biological Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
B.S. Biochemistry, University of Vermont

CH 100 Intro to Forensics
CH 103 General Chemistry
CH 299 Molecular Forensics

PRUNE2 is a human prostate cancer suppressor regulated by the intronic long noncoding RNA PCA3.
Salameh A, Lee AK, Cardó-Vila M, Nunes DN, Efstathiou E, Staquicini FI, Dobroff AS, Marchiò S, Navone NM, Hosoya H, Lauer RC, Wen S, Salmeron CC, Hoang A, Newsham I, Lima LA, Carraro DM, Oliviero S, Kolonin MG, Sidman RL, Do KA, Troncoso P, Logothetis CJ, Brentani RR, Calin GA, Cavenee WK, Dias-Neto E, Pasqualini R, Arap W. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2015 Jul 7;112(27):8403-8. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1507882112. Epub 2015 Jun 15. PMID: 26080435

Whole-genome sequencing for optimized patient management.
Bainbridge MN, Wiszniewski W, Murdock DR, Friedman J, Gonzaga-Jauregui C, Newsham I, Reid JG, Fink JK, Morgan MB, Gingras MC, Muzny DM, Hoang LD, Yousaf S, Lupski JR, Gibbs RA. Sci Transl Med. 2011 Jun 15;3(87):87re3. doi: 10.1126/scitranslmed.3002243.PMID: 21677200

Targeted enrichment beyond the consensus coding DNA sequence exome reveals exons with higher variant densities.
Bainbridge MN, Wang M, Wu Y, Newsham I, Muzny DM, Jefferies JL, Albert TJ, Burgess DL, Gibbs RA. Genome Biol. 2011 Jul 25;12(7):R68. doi: 10.1186/gb-2011-12-7-r68.PMID: 21787409