Catharine Freyer, MBA, has been working in clinical research for almost 15 years. Starting as the project director for the Epilepsy Phenome/Genome Project (EPGP) in 2007, Catharine developed an interest in how patients—and especially their families and communities – are impacted by neurologic disease. EPGP went on to be the largest epilepsy study of its kind ever completed, with almost 5,000 participants with familial epilepsy enrolled from more than 30 centers worldwide. The genomics for EPGP proved that the exome was a critical source of genes in epilepsy, and several years later there were more than 70 identified epilepsy genes. Over the next decade, Catharine worked with research teams to expand and develop the EPGP network across numerous projects in new onset epilepsy, build a global genomics registry, and expand the genomics collaborative of EPGP across the entire globe with the Epi25 Collaborative, which successfully brought together more than 25,000 epilepsy genomes from more than 30 international research consortiums. 

In her work with the various research collaboratives, what interests Catharine the most is the prospect of engaging patients in the exciting process of clinical research. In all of her research projects, Catharine most enjoys working with patients who have not found answers to their questions, or who feel that information they need is somehow beyond their grasp. Catharine believes strongly that everyone is part of science, and has worked on numerous projects to develop protocols to better support patients’ needs and craft educational materials to improve patients’ understanding. She has also worked on national pilots to re-envision genomics data protocols and with leaders in ethics to improve patient access to data that can change their clinical care. At San Francisco General Hospital, Catharine feels like she has found her perfect home alongside faculty who are dedicated to the care of the underserved, and a hospital whose mission is to be the “Sanctuary of Sanctuaries” for those who need it most.

Learn more about Catharine here.