In my research program, I use human genomics and multi-omics to understand inherited and environmental risk factors for cardiometabolic diseases, Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, and related quantitative traits, including hematology and hemostasis phenotypes. I work to link genetic variants to function through integration with multi-omics data, including transcriptomic, methylation, proteomic, and metabolomic measures. This work has important implications for disease risk prediction and improved understanding of disease biology. A focus on understudied populations is a central theme of my research; human genetics and molecular epidemiology research is dramatically unrepresentative of global populations, with for example >90% of genome-wide association study participants of European descent. As complex trait genetics moves into the clinic, increasing representativeness is essential to ensure that all populations benefit from the promise of precision medicine. Characterization of population-differentiated variants with impacts on hematological parameters, for example sickle cell trait and Duffy-null status, is an ongoing area of research for our lab, as are hematological trait polygenic risk scores and rare variant genetic discovery efforts.
I play a leadership role in collaborative efforts in human genetics, for example serving as a Genetics Working Group co-chair for the Jackson Heart Study (JHS), one of the largest population-based studies of African American adults, and as a co-convener of the Multi-Omics working group for the NHLBI Trans-Omics for Precision Medicine (TOPMed) program.
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