Genetics & Genomics

The combination of genomics and metabolism identified a long-sought mitochondrial choline transporter.

Sarah Tishkoff, PhD, and her collaborators have created one of the world’s largest databases of African diversity derived from genetic samples from more than 9,000 people representing more than 200 diverse ethnic groups.

The study was the largest ancestry-stratified, genetic estimation of the heritability of diabetic retinopathy conducted to date and included an unprecedented number of individuals of non-Hispanic African ancestry — more than 46,000.

The Vanderbilt study used RNA-sequencing data generated in multiple normal tissues, along with matched genotype data from the Genotype-Tissue Expression Project as well as large-scale genomic data for cancers of the breast, ovary, prostate, colorectum, lung and pancreas.

Roughly 1 in 10 people over age 70 will develop CHIP, an explosive, clonal growth of abnormal blood cells that increases risk of blood cancers and death from cardiovascular, lung and liver disease.

People whose white blood cell levels are near the edge of the “healthy” reference range will hit a clinical decision point that has consequences such as diagnostic procedures and altered treatments.

V2-GENE, the Vanderbilt-Vietnam Genetic Epidemiology Training Program, will develop a team of researchers and educators to lead genetic epidemiology research of noncommunicable diseases across the lifespan in Vietnam.