Dr. Raul Urrutia is the Executive Director of the John and Linda Mellowes Center for Genomics Sciences and Precision Medicine, which launched Genomic Medicine  in 2015. He also holds the prestigious Warren P. Knowles Chair of Genomics and Precision Medicine. His laboratory pioneered the field of epigenetics in pancreatic cancer as well as rare monogenic diseases that share mechanisms with this cancer. His work at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, MD, Mayo Clinic, and now as Director of the John and Linda Mellowes Center for Genomic Sciences and Precision Medicine focuses on the regulation of initiation and progression by epigenetic regulators. Findings from his laboratory demonstrated that pancreatic cancer initiation and progression are mechanistically driven by epigenomics and can be modified by epigenomic therapeutics. Dr. Urrutia’s laboratory discovered many reprogramming factors of iPSC cells, the histone subcode hypothesis, and many new pathways involving writers, readers, and erasers of the histone code. Dr. Urrutia is the Past President of the APA, Former Chair of Pancreatic Disorders of AGA, and Editor-in-Chief of Pancreatology. He currently serves on many national and international committees, nationally and internationally. Dr. Urrutia’s passion for mentorship has led him to train more than 50 world-wide recognized scientific leaders.