Olena Vaske founded the Treehouse Childhood Cancer Initiative in 2105 at the UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute. At UC Santa Cruz she is an associate professor of molecular, cell and developmental biology and holds the Colligan Presidential Chair of Pediatric Genomics. She is board-certified in Clinical Molecular Genetics. Vaske develops novel molecular diagnostic methods and identifies treatment targets for children who have difficult-to-treat cancers. Dr. Vaske holds a PhD in Bioinformatics from the University of British Columbia and a BSc in Molecular Genetics and Biology from the University of Toronto. She grew up in Kharkiv, Ukraine and now lives in Santa Cruz, CA with her family.
