On Aug.1, 2025, Associate Director of Molecular Pathology, Genetics, and Genomics (MPGG) Sarah Rapisardo, PhD, was promoted to associate professor.
She joined Duke faculty as an assistant professor of pathology in 2012. Except for a two-year excursion into biotech, where she worked as director of LabOps at Scipher Medicine[SEMP1] , a precision immunology start-up in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, she has worked in the MPGG, home of the Duke Cytogenetics and Molecular Diagnostics Laboratories ,since completing her fellowship training in clinical cytogenetics and clinical molecular genetics at Duke in 2014.
Based on motivation to improve test utilization, Rapisardo and her colleague, Assistant Professor of Hematopathology and Molecular Genetic Pathology Jadee Neff, MD, PhD, won the 2023 CAP Foundation Genomic Testing Process Improvement award as co-principal investigators and received $25,000.
“Our work on this grant began in July 2024,” said Rapisardo. “We have already implemented a pre-analytical testing review process for our heme next-generation sequencing assays, developed recommended testing algorithms for heme malignancy testing, and identified additional cross-functional aims to improve ordering accuracy for these high-complexity tests.”
In addition to her primary responsibilities in case sign-out within the Molecular Diagnostics and Cytogenetics laboratories, Rapisardo serves as the director of the division’s test development, helping to validate and implement new laboratory-developed tests (LDTs). Current projects include the development of a new NGS test, designed to consolidate many of the laboratory’s single gene assays onto a single, rapid panel with automation capability and the development of an LDT for brain tumor methylation classification, allowing doctors to determine the exact type of brain tumor.
Rapisardo completed her PhD in Molecular Cancer Biology at Duke in the laboratory of Professor Emerita of Biology Sally Kornbluth, PhD, in 2010.