Jane Gitschier, PhD,studies the inherited basis for human diseases and behaviors. Her research interests have included understanding the mutations that give rise to hemophilia and discovery of the genes for a variety of inherited defects in heavy metal metabolism. She received her PhD from MIT and conducted post-doctoral work at Genentech. She was an Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and a Guggenheim Fellow. Her current research interests include exploring the genetic basis for absolute pitch perception. She also writes interviews for the open-access journal PLoS Genetics.