Research overview

Our mission is to identify and characterise causal biological pathways in cardiovascular disease.

Population-level genetic analysis has transformed our understanding of the contribution of genetic variation to cardiovascular disease, the leading global cause of mortality. However, a major challenge in unlocking the potential of these genomic studies is in uncovering the molecular chain of events from genetic variation to clinical events.

To tackle this challenge, we combine systematic computational and experimental approaches to expose new mechanisms leading to atherosclerosis, the major cause of cardiovascular disease. We apply cutting-edge technology, including human induced pluripotent stem cells, CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing in cellular models, and recall-by-genotype mechanistic studies in healthy volunteers, to elucidate the molecular, cellular, and physiological underpinnings of candidate causal variants and genes.

Our efforts, which integrate genetic epidemiology, functional genomics/epigenomics, and clinical medicine, facilitate a better understanding of the aetiology of cardiovascular disease to inform the development of new therapeutics.