Suzette is a biomedical scientist who is passionate about drug discovery and translational medicine. Prior to Octant, she worked for a decade in biotech/pharma. Most recently, she worked at Broadwing Bio leading preclinical biology efforts. She also worked in Discovery Biology at Merck and the Translational Genomics group at Ambry Genetics.
She received her BS and MS degrees at UCSD, where she engineered a high-throughput screen for molecules that drive insulin gene expression in the lab of Fred Levine. She completed her PhD in the lab of Seth Field at UCSD, where she discovered that DNA-damaging chemotherapeutic agents cause a dispersal of the Golgi apparatus.
Outside of work, Suzette enjoys spending time with her two very active kids. In her free time, she advocates for children with special needs and volunteers for a bird rescue.
Selected publications:
Farber-Katz Brown S, Nguyen H, Mzyk P, De Ieso ML, Unser AM, Brown I, Ramesh P, Afzaal H, Ahmed F, Torrejon KY, Nhan A, Markrush D, Daly T, Knecht E, McConaughy W, Halmos S, Liu ZL, Rennard R, Peterson A, Stamer WD*. “ANGPTL7 and its role In IOP and glaucoma.” Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci, 2024. Mar 5;65(3):22. doi: 10.1167/iovs.65.3.22.
Lamy R, Farber-Katz S, Vives F, Ayanoglu G, Zhao T, Chen Y, Laotaweerungsawat S, Ma D, Phone A, Psaras C, Li X, Sutradhar S, Carrington P, Stewart JM. “Comparative analysis of multiplex platforms for detecting vitreous markers in diabetic retinopathy.” Transl Vis Sci Technol. 2020 Sep 2;9(10):3.
Farber-Katz S, Hsuan V, Wu S, Landrith T, Vuong H, Du X, Hoo J, Lam S, Nashed S, Li B, Lu H-M, Elliott A, Davis B, Karam R. “Quantitative Analysis of BRCA1 and BRCA2 Germline Splicing Variants Using a Novel RNA-Massively Parallel Sequencing Assay.” Frontiers Oncology, 2018. 8:286.
Farber-Katz SE, Dippold HC, Buschman MD, Peterman MC, Xing M, Noakes CJ, Tat J, Ng MM, Rajeng J, Cowan DM, Fuchs GJ, Zhou H, Field SJ. “DNA Damage Triggers Golgi Dispersal via DNA-PK and GOLPH3.” Cell, 2014. 156(3):413-427.
Kiselyuk A, Lee SH, Farber-Katz S, Zhang M, Athavankar S, Cohen T, Pinkerton AB, Ye M, Bushway P, Richardson AD, Hostetler HA, Rodriguez-Lee M, Huang L, Spangler B, Smith L, Higginbotham J, Cashman J, Freeze H, Itkin-Ansari P, Dawson MI, Schroeder F, Cang Y, Mercola M, Levine F. “HNF4a Antagonists Discovered by High-Throughput Screening for Modulators of the Human Insulin Promoter.” Chemistry and Biology, 2012. 19(7):806-18.