Sherifa Akinniyi, B.S.

Ms. Sherifa Akinniyi joined DCEG as a postbaccalaureate fellow and Undergraduate Scholarship Program (UGSP) Scholar in the Clinical Genetics Branch (CGB) in June 2023. She earned a B.S. in nutritional sciences and minor in biology from the University of Georgia, Athens, in May 2023. 

In CGB, Ms. Akinniyi’s research focuses on estimating the population prevalence of germline variants in genes associated with telomere biology disorders. Using a genome-first approach, she is initially studying the prevalence and cancer phenotypes of individuals with pathogenic or likely pathogenic germline TERT variants in genetic sequencing biobanks linked with electronic health records. Ms. Akinniyi is under the mentorship of Kelvin C. de Andrade, Ph.D., M.Sc., research fellow, and Sharon A. Savage, M.D., senior investigator and Director, CGB.