Gamazon receives NIH Genomic Innovator Award | VUMC Reporter

by Leigh MacMillan

Eric Gamazon, PhD, a college member within the Division of Genetic Medication, has obtained a Genomic Innovator Award from the Nationwide Human Genome Analysis Institute, a part of the Nationwide Institutes of Well being (NIH). Gamazon is one in every of solely six investigators to obtain the award in its inaugural 12 months.

The Genomic Innovator Award program goals to speed up genomics analysis by supporting early profession investigators with five-year grants of roughly $2.5 million.

In contrast to conventional analysis grants, these awards present funding to researchers with “excellent information of productiveness as they pursue essential analysis areas, together with new instructions as they come up,” the NIH stated in a information launch.

“I’m very excited to obtain this award,” Gamazon stated. “It gives flexibility and provides me the liberty to pursue formidable and artistic analysis.”

Gamazon, a member of the Vanderbilt Genetics Institute, will construct on his current nationwide and worldwide analysis collaborations to develop a set of analytic approaches and computational instruments for the evaluation of the human medical phenome — all of the traits and ailments included in digital well being information — together with large-scale biobanks and useful genomics knowledge.

“We’ll devise approaches to bridge the hole between useful genomics and genomic epidemiology by growing novel statistical strategies and computational instruments,” Gamazon stated. “Our work has the potential to uncover novel molecular processes contributing to human illness.”

Working with Nancy Cox, PhD, director of the Vanderbilt Genetics Institute, Gamazon beforehand developed a computational methodology referred to as PrediXcan that correlates genetically regulated gene expression with phenotypes. They’ve utilized PrediXcan to BioVU, Vanderbilt’s DNA biobank and de-identified digital well being information, to generate a complete catalog of associations between gene expression and medical traits.

The Genomic Innovator Award will assist his analysis program on the event of latest computational methodologies to check the genetic foundation of human illness and their integration with modern experimental strategies in useful genomics, corresponding to genome enhancing and single-cell omics profiling, Gamazon stated.

He’ll apply the brand new methodologies to ongoing analysis initiatives together with:

• Modeling the transcriptional regulatory applications within the mind, in collaboration with human geneticists, neuroscientists and evolutionary biologists, and
• Probing the molecular mechanisms underlying hematopoiesis and hematologic problems.

Gamazon served as co-chair of the GWAS Working Group of the GTEx (Genotype-Tissue Expression) Consortium, which is cataloging genetic variation and its affect on gene expression in all main tissues within the human physique. He’s a member of the T2D-GENES consortium, which seeks to establish genetic variants for Sort 2 diabetes.

He’s a Life Member of Clare Corridor, a graduate faculty dedicated to superior research, analysis and scholarship on the College of Cambridge. His appointment to fellowship in Clare Corridor facilitates key collaborations, Gamazon stated.