Genetics & Genomics

Vanderbilt University Medical Center has received a five-year, $4.5 million grant from the National Human Genome Research Institute to assess clinical outcomes and economic value of screening large, diverse health care populations for disease risk using polygenic risk scores.

A technique to characterize all variants in genes associated with arrhythmia could improve the ability to identify and preemptively treat individuals at risk for sudden cardiac death.

Vanderbilt researchers have discovered that a genetic predisposition to elevated body mass index increases the risk of diastolic dysfunction — a cardiac condition that can lead to heart failure.

Younger patients with atrial fibrillation who had rare genetic variants associated with inherited cardiomyopathy and arrythmia syndromes were associated with a significantly higher rate of death than those without the variants, a Vanderbilt-led study has shown.

BioVU is celebrating its 15th year and has enabled hundreds of studies and publications exploring the genetic underpinnings of a host of conditions including cancer, heart disease and diabetes. 

Including polygenic risk scores for blood pressure may improve predictive models to identify people at risk for treatment-resistant hypertension.

Genotyping multiple enzymes that metabolize the immunosuppressive drug tacrolimus — common used for lung transplant recipients — is important for correct dosing of the drug, Vanderbilt researchers found.