Eric R. Gamazon is a statistical geneticist in Vanderbilt University, with faculty affiliations in the Division of Genetic Medicine, Data Science Institute, and Center for Precision Medicine.[1] He is a Life Member[2] of Clare Hall, Cambridge University after election to a Visiting Fellowship (2018).[3]

Eric R. Gamazon
Born
Eric Ramos Gamazon
NationalityAmerican
Alma materUniversity of Chicago
University of Amsterdam (PhD)
AwardsNational Institutes of Health Genomic Innovator Award (2019)
Scientific career
FieldsStatistical genetics
Functional genomics
Human genetics
InstitutionsUniversity of Chicago
University of Cambridge
Vanderbilt University Medical Center
ThesisThe genetic architecture of neuropsychiatric traits : mechanism, polygenicity, and genome function

Research and career

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Eric Gamazon has developed computational methods that can be used to identify genes and mechanisms underlying complex diseases.[4][5] He was a developer of the transcriptome-wide association study[6][7] (TWAS) methodology (PrediXcan), which integrates gene expression and genome-wide association study data to identify disease-associated genes. Subsequent work integrated Mendelian randomization into TWAS.[6][8] As of December 2021, he has authored 160 peer-reviewed publications in human genetics, functional genomics, and statistical genetics.[9] He was a co-chair of the Genome-Wide Association Studies Working Group of the Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) project,[10] the National Institutes of Health (NIH) program that developed a transcriptome and expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) reference resource for the scientific community. He leads a research initiative to integrate large-scale DNA biobanks and functional genomics to further precision medicine in diverse populations.[11]

He has identified genes associated with neuropsychiatric disorders.[12] He leads a National Institute on Aging funded international consortium that aims to identify new treatments for Alzheimer's disease using genetic and molecular data.[13][14]

Awards and honors

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Gamazon was a recipient of the inaugural National Institutes of Health Genomic Innovator Award, which is awarded to investigators in genome biology and genomic medicine with “outstanding records of productivity as they pursue important research areas, including new directions as they arise."[15][16] He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology[17] and a Fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge[2] in 2018. In 2021, he was appointed a standing member of the National Institutes of Health Review Panel for Biostatistical Methods and Research Design (BMRD),[18] which reviews and makes recommendations on (grant) "applications which seek to advance statistical and mathematical techniques and technologies applicable to the experimental design and analysis of data in biomedical, behavioral, and social science research.”[19]

Selected publications

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  • Smemo, Scott, Juan J. Tena, Kyoung-Han Kim, Eric R. Gamazon, Noboru J. Sakabe, Carlos Gómez-Marín, Ivy Aneas et al. "Obesity-associated variants within FTO form long-range functional connections with IRX3." Nature 507, no. 7492 (2014): 371–375. doi:10.1038/nature13138.
  • Gamazon, Eric R., Heather E. Wheeler, Kaanan P. Shah, Sahar V. Mozaffari, Keston Aquino-Michaels, Robert J. Carroll, Anne E. Eyler et al. "A gene-based association method for mapping traits using reference transcriptome data." Nature Genetics 47, no. 9 (2015): 1091–1098. doi:10.1038/ng.3367.
  • Gamazon, Eric R., Ayellet V. Segrè, Martijn van de Bunt, Xiaoquan Wen, Hualin S. Xi, Farhad Hormozdiari, Halit Ongen et al. "Using an atlas of gene regulation across 44 human tissues to inform complex disease-and trait-associated variation." Nature Genetics 50, no. 7 (2018): 956–967. doi:10.1038/s41588-018-0154-4.
  • Gamazon, Eric R., Aeilko H. Zwinderman, Nancy J. Cox, Damiaan Denys, and Eske M. Derks. "Multi-tissue transcriptome analyses identify genetic mechanisms underlying neuropsychiatric traits." Nature Genetics 51, no. 6 (2019): 933–940. doi:10.1038/s41588-019-0409-8.
  • Wang, Ying, Frederick S. Yen, Xiphias Ge Zhu, Rebecca C. Timson, Ross Weber, Changrui Xing, Yuyang Liu, Benjamin Allwein, Hanzhi Luo, Hsi-Wen Yeh, Søren Heissel, Gokhan Unlu, Eric R. Gamazon, Michael G. Kharas, Richard Hite & Kıvanç Birsoy. "SLC25A39 is necessary for mitochondrial glutathione import in mammalian cells." Nature 599, no. 7883 (2021): 136–140. doi:10.1038/s41586-021-04025-w.
  • Pietzner, Maik, Eleanor Wheeler, Julia Carrasco-Zanini, Adrian Cortes, Mine Koprulu, Maria A. Wörheide, Erin Oerton, James Cook, Isobel D. Stewart, Nicola D. Kerrison, Jian’an Luan, Johannes Raffler, Matthias Arnold, Wiebke Arlt, Stephen O’Rahilly, Gabi Kastenmüller, Eric R. Gamazon, Aroon D. Hingorani, Robert A. Scott, Nicholas J. Wareham, Claudia Langenberg. "Mapping the proteo-genomic convergence of human diseases." Science 374, no. 6569 (2021): eabj1541. doi:10.1126/science.abj1541.
  • Zhou, Dan, Yi Jiang, Xue Zhong, Nancy J. Cox, Chunyu Liu, and Eric R. Gamazon. "A unified framework for joint-tissue transcriptome-wide association and Mendelian randomization analysis." Nature Genetics 52, no. 11 (2020): 1239–1246. doi:10.1038/s41588-020-0706-2.

References

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  1. ^ "Gamazon Lab". Vanderbilt University. Retrieved 2022-01-02.
  2. ^ a b "Papers co-authored by Life Member published in Science and Nature". Clare Hall, Cambridge. Retrieved 2021-12-24.
  3. ^ "Visiting Fellows". Clare Hall, Cambridge. Retrieved 2021-12-24.
  4. ^ "Eric R. Gamazon publications indexed by Google Scholar". scholar.google.com. Retrieved 2022-01-01.
  5. ^ "Getting specific with disease locations". Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. 29 June 2018. Retrieved 2021-12-28.
  6. ^ a b Li B, Ritchie MD (September 2021). "From GWAS to Gene: Transcriptome-Wide Association Studies and Other Methods to Functionally Understand GWAS Discoveries". Frontiers in Genetics. 12: 713230. doi:10.3389/fgene.2021.713230. PMC 8515949. PMID 34659337.
  7. ^ Wainberg M, Sinnott-Armstrong N, Mancuso N, Barbeira AN, Knowles DA, Golan D, Ermel R, Ruusalepp A, Quertermous T, Hao K, Björkegren JL, Im HK, Pasaniuc B, Rivas MA, Kundaje A (April 2019). "Opportunities and challenges for transcriptome-wide association studies". Nature Genetics. 51 (4): 592–599. doi:10.1038/s41588-019-0385-z. PMC 6777347. PMID 30926968.
  8. ^ Zhou D, Jiang Y, Zhong X, Cox NJ, Liu C, Gamazon ER (November 2020). "A unified framework for joint-tissue transcriptome-wide association and Mendelian randomization analysis". Nature Genetics. 52 (11): 1239–1246. doi:10.1038/s41588-020-0706-2. PMC 7606598. PMID 33020666.
  9. ^ "Pubmed.gov". www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Retrieved 2021-12-24.
  10. ^ "GTEx Creates a Reference Data Set to Study Genetic Changes and Gene Expression". National Institutes of Health. 8 February 2018. Retrieved 2021-12-24.
  11. ^ "Award supports integration of genomic data, electronic health records". Vanderbilt University Medical Center Reporter. 10 September 2020. Retrieved 2022-01-03.
  12. ^ Laura M. Zahn (2019-06-14). "Editors' Choice - Gene expression can point to disease risk". doi:10.1126/science.2019.364.6445.twil. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  13. ^ "Advancing drug repositioning and development for Alzheimer's Disease using functional genomics and computational phenomics". NIH Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tools (RePORT). Retrieved 2022-01-01.
  14. ^ "Potential new drugs for Alzheimer's disease identified by researchers". QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Brisbane, Australia. Retrieved 2021-12-31.
  15. ^ "NIH announces six inaugural Genomic Innovator Awards". National Institutes of Health. 27 August 2019. Retrieved 2021-12-24.
  16. ^ "Gamazon receives NIH Genomic Innovator Award". Vanderbilt University Medical Center Reporter. Retrieved 2021-12-24.
  17. ^ "The Biologist - New Members" (PDF). Royal Society of Biology. Retrieved 2021-12-28.
  18. ^ "Biostatistical Methods and Research Design Roster". National Institutes of Health. Retrieved 2021-12-29.
  19. ^ "BMRD Study Section". NIH Center for Scientific Review. Retrieved 2021-12-29.