John Lazar performed his dissertation research in the Department of Genome Sciences under the mentorship of Dr. John Stamatoyannopoulos. John employed experimental and computational approaches to investigate how mutations and dysregulation of chromatin remodelers contribute to cancer. Dr. Stamatoyannopoulos is a leader of the ENCODE consortium, a worldwide collaboration that aims to identify functional elements in the human genome. John played a pivotal role in the Stamatoyannopoulos laboratory’s participation in ENCODE. John was instrumental in developing a cutting-edge new course for MSTP and other medical students at the University of Washington, focused on sequencing the genome of a cadaver undergoing dissection in the medical school human anatomy course. This was the first course of its kind for any medical school. For five years, John participated in the design, teaching, genome sequencing, and data analysis. Two papers were collaboratively written through the aegis of this course.