Filipino-American statistical geneticist
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 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 (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. As of December 2021, he has authored 160 peer-reviewed publications in human genetics, functional genomics, and statistical genetics. He was a co-chair of the Genome-Wide Association Studies Working Group of the Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) project, 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.
He has identified genes associated with neuropsychiatric disorders. 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.
Awards and honors.
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." He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology and a Fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge 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), 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.”
References.
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