Dr. Hanchard is a clinical geneticist at the Texas Children’s Clinical Care Center in Houston. He is interested in the genetics of several complex pediatric diseases, trying to piece together why different people will have different forms of the same disease.

Dr. Hanchard received his medical degree from the University of the West Indes in Kingston, Jamaica, and his Ph.D. from the University of Oxford in the UK. He continued his clinical training at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, and Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, TX. In addition to his research interests, Dr. Hanchard sees patients and families, particularly as a member of the Undiagnosed Disease Network, which uses molecular techniques to diagnose unusual presentations of disease.

Outside of the clinic, Dr. Hanchard’s research is largely focused on global health. One project, being done in Malawi and Jamaica, looks at severe childhood malnutrition (SCM), which is responsible for two million deaths per year. There are two distinct forms of SCM — an edematous form, where cells swell and children are very likely to die, and a non-edematous form, which is less deadly. However, research has not been very successful in finding any environmental or dietary differences between children who develop edematous vs. non-edematous SCM. Dr. Hanchard believes that there is a genetic difference between these two groups, and is looking at DNA sequence, DNA methylation, and metabolic profiles in the hopes of identifying predictive differences.

Another project, being done in Uganda and Botswana, is doing similar profiling work to figure out why children with HIV and tuberculosis (~50% of children in Sub-Saharan African with HIV also have TB) have such variable disease progression and prognosis.