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. He is a Life Member of Clare Hall,

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

after election to a Visiting Fellowship (2018).

Research and career

Eric Gamazon has developed computational methods that can be used to identify genes and mechanisms underlying complex diseases. He was a developer of the

transcriptome-wide association study Transcriptome-wide association study (TWAS) is a genetic methodology that can be used to compare the genetic components of gene expression and the genetic components of a trait to determine if an association is present between the two components. TW ...

(TWAS) methodology (PrediXcan), which integrates

gene expression Gene expression is the process (including its Regulation of gene expression, regulation) by which information from a gene is used in the synthesis of a functional gene product that enables it to produce end products, proteins or non-coding RNA, ...

and

genome-wide association study In genomics, a genome-wide association study (GWA study, or GWAS), is an observational study of a genome-wide set of Single-nucleotide polymorphism, genetic variants in different individuals to see if any variant is associated with a trait. GWA s ...

data to identify disease-associated genes. Subsequent work integrated

Mendelian randomization In epidemiology, Mendelian randomization (commonly abbreviated to MR) is a method using measured variation in genes to examine the causal effect of an exposure on an outcome. Under key assumptions (see below), the design reduces both reverse causat ...

into TWAS. As of December 2021, he has authored 160

peer-reviewed Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work ( peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...

publications in

human genetics Human genetics is the study of inheritance as it occurs in Human, human beings. Human genetics encompasses a variety of overlapping fields including: classical genetics, cytogenetics, molecular genetics, biochemical genetics, genomics, populatio ...

functional genomics Functional genomics is a field of molecular biology that attempts to describe gene (and protein) functions and interactions. Functional genomics make use of the vast data generated by genomic and transcriptomic projects (such as genome sequen ...

, and

statistical genetics Statistical genetics is a scientific field concerned with the development and application of statistical methods for drawing inferences from genetic data. The term is most commonly used in the context of human genetics. Research in statistical ge ...

. He was a co-chair of the

Genome-Wide Association Studies In genomics, a genome-wide association study (GWA study, or GWAS), is an observational study of a genome-wide set of genetic variants in different individuals to see if any variant is associated with a trait. GWA studies typically focus on assoc ...

Working Group of the Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) project, the

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in 1887 and is part of the United States Department of Health and Human Service ...

(NIH) program that developed a

transcriptome The transcriptome is the set of all RNA transcripts, including coding and non-coding, in an individual or a population of cells. The term can also sometimes be used to refer to all RNAs, or just mRNA, depending on the particular experiment. The ...

and

expression quantitative trait loci An expression quantitative trait locus (eQTL) is a type of quantitative trait locus (QTL), a genomic locus (region of DNA) that is associated with phenotypic variation for a specific, quantifiable trait. While the term QTL can refer to a wide ran ...

(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 Precision, precise or precisely may refer to: Arts and media * ''Precision'' (march), the official marching music of the Royal Military College of Canada * "Precision" (song), by Big Sean * ''Precisely'' (sketch), a dramatic sketch by the Eng ...

in diverse populations. He has identified genes associated with neuropsychiatric disorders. He leads a

National Institute on Aging The National Institute on Aging (NIA) is a division of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), located in Bethesda, Maryland. The NIA itself is headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland. The NIA leads a broad scientific effort to understand ...

funded international consortium that aims to identify new treatments for Alzheimer's disease using genetic and molecular data.

Awards and honors

Gamazon was a recipient of the inaugural

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." He was elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology Fellowship of the Royal Society of Biology (FRSB), previously Fellowship of the Society of Biology (FSB), is an award and fellowship granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Biology has adjudged to have made a "prominent contribution to t ...

and a Fellow of

Clare Hall, Cambridge Clare Hall is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1966 by Clare College, Clare Hall is a college for advanced study, admitting only postgraduate students alongside postdoctoral researchers and fellows. It was est ...

in 2018. In 2021, he was appointed a standing member of the

Review Panel for Biostatistical Methods and Research Design (BMRD), 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.”

Selected publications

* 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

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gamazon, Eric R. American geneticists Statistical geneticists Fellows of Clare Hall, Cambridge Academics of the University of Cambridge Vanderbilt University faculty University of Chicago alumni Year of birth missing (living people) Living people University of Amsterdam alumni