Karen Miga, MS, PhD

Karen Elizabeth Hayden Miga is an American genomics expert who leads the Telomere-to-Telomore (T2T) consortium that seeks to fully complete the assembly of the human genome. She serves as an Assistant Professor in the Biomolecular Engineering Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz and is Associate Director at the UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute. She was named as "One to Watch" in the 2020 Nature's 10.

In 2012, Miga joined the laboratory of David Haussler at the University of California, Santa Cruz. At UCSC she combined computational and experimental approaches. There she leads the telomere-to-telomere (T2T) consortium, a community based effort that seeks to fully sequence and assemble the human genome. Her research efforts make use of long-read sequencing strategies. She makes use of the Oxford Nanopore Technologies MinION sequencer, which analyses DNA by detecting changes in current flow when DNA passes through nanopores in a membrane.

Miga leads the Human Pangenome Production Center that seeks to contribute to the next human pangenome reference map through the creation of 350 T2T diploid genomes. This map will support the development of personalised therapeutics. In 2020 Miga was named as "One to Watch" in the 2020 Nature's 10.