Dr. Sharon Plon

Dr. Sharon Plon is a board-certified medical geneticist and a longstanding researcher in the areas of cancer genetics, including the discovery of new cancer susceptibility genes and early implementation of genomic testing in medicine. At Texas Children’s Hospital, she founded the Cancer Genetics Clinic in 1995 and is Director of the Texas Children’s Cancer Genetics and Genomics Program.

Dr. Plon is a Professor in the Departments of Pediatrics/Hematology-Oncology, Molecular and Human Genetics and Human Genome Sequencing Center. Drs. Plon and D. William Parsons were principal investigators of the NHGRI/NCI-funded BASIC3 clinical trial on the incorporation of exome sequencing into the care of newly diagnosed childhood cancer patients and this study is now being expanded into several different centers in Texas (KidsCanSeq trial).

Since 2013, Dr. Plon has served as one of the Principal Investigators of the NIH-supported Clinical Genome (ClinGen) Resource and chairs the ClinGen hereditary cancer clinical domain working group. She is also working closely with Dr. Philip Lupo on a population-based study to understand the association between birth defects and cancer risk in children.

Dr. Plon currently serves on the Board of Directors of the American Society of Human Genetics and is a standing member of the Human Genome Research Advisory Council of the National Human Genome Research Institute.