The Stanford University human geneticist identified the genes and genomic abnormalities underlying numerous rare diseases, including Rett  syndrome, and advanced the field of molecular diagnostics. 

By Anna Azvolinsky | May 1, 2018

Before moving her lab from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), to Yale University in 1978, Uta Francke learned how to fly. “I thought, where could you go from New Haven if you are very busy and don’t have much time? It’s hard to do with a car and even the train, so I got a license to fly a small plane and joined a flying club in New Haven,” says the professor emerita of genetics and pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicine.