Mary-Claire King (1946- ) is an American human geneticist. She is professor at the University of Washington, where she studies the genetics and interaction of genetics and environmental influences on human conditions such as HIV, lupus, inherited deafness, and also breast and ovarian cancer. King is known for three major accomplishments: identifying breast cancer genes;[citation needed] demonstrating that humans and chimpanzees are 99% genetically identical;[citation needed] and applying genomic sequencing to ident.