BHF Clinical Research Fellow
Email: jp549@cam.ac.uk
Background
I am a clinician-scientist interested in using genomic technologies to better understand the pathogenesis of cardiovascular diseases in humans. I undertook specialist clinical training in Rheumatology in London, where I developed a particular interest in vasculitis, and vascular inflammation more broadly. I have an MPhil in Computational Biology from the University of Cambridge, and undertook a Wellcome Trust funded PhD in Prof. Ken Smith’s laboratory, jointly supervised by Prof. Sylvia Richardson, Director of the MRC Biostatistics Unit. This involved expression quantitative trait locus (eQTL) mapping in primary human immune cells from patients with inflammatory bowel disease, ANCA-associated vasculitis and healthy controls. This work revealed how the genetic control of gene expression varies between cell types and between health and inflammatory disease states, and provides insight into how non-coding variants may influence susceptibility to immune-mediated diseases.
Research Interests
The importance of inflammation in cardiovascular diseases is now well established. Accelerated atherosclerosis is a feature of many of the autoimmune rheumatic diseases, and a better understanding of vascular inflammation is key to developing new therapies for atherosclerosis and for vasculitis. Against this background, I intend to undertake post-doctoral research in Prof. John Danesh’s group to gain insight into the aetiology of cardiovascular diseases and vascular inflammation by applying –omic technologies at the population level. A particular feature of our approach will be the use of Mendelian randomisation to identify likely causal mediators of cardiovascular diseases which may be amenable to therapeutic intervention.
Selected Publications
Peters JE, Lyons PA, Lee JC, Richard AC, Newcombe PJ, Richardson S, Smith KGC. Insight into Genotype-Phenotype Associations through eQTL Mapping in Multiple Cell Types in Health and Immune-Mediated Disease. PLoS genetics. 2016;12(3):e1005908.
Richard AC, Peters JE, Lee JC, Vahedi G, Schäffer AA, Siegel RM, Lyons PA, Smith KGC. Targeted genomic analysis reveals widespread autoimmune disease association with regulatory variants in the TNF superfamily cytokine signalling network. Genome Medicine 2016; 8: 76.
Lewin A, Saadi H, Peters JE, Moreno-Moral A, Lee JC, Smith KGC, Petretto E, Bottolo L, Richardson S. MT-HESS: an efficient Bayesian approach for simultaneous association detection in OMICS datasets, with application to eQTL mapping in multiple tissues. Bioinformatics (Oxford, England). 2016 Feb;32(4):523–532.
Richard AC, Lyons PA, Peters JE, Biasci D, Flint SM, Lee JC, McKinney EF, Siegel RM, Smith KG. Comparison of gene expression microarray data with count-based RNA measurements informs microarray interpretation. BMC Genomics 2014, 15:649.
Youngstein T*, Peters JE*, Hamdulay S, Mewar D, Price-Forbes A, Lloyd M, Jeffery R, Kinderlerer A, Mason J. Serial analysis of clinical and imaging indices reveals prolonged efficacy of TNF-alpha and IL-6 receptor targeted therapies in refractory Takayasu arteritis. Clin Exp Rheum 2014; 32(3 Suppl 82):S11-8
*joint first authors
Peters JE, Burke CJ, Morris VH. 3 cases of rheumatoid arthritis with laryngeal stridor. Clinical Rheumatology 2011; 30:723-7.
Mankia S*, Peters JE*, Kang S, Moore S, Ehrenstein MR. Tuberculosis and anti-TNF treatment: experience of a central London hospital. Clinical Rheumatology 2011; 30:399-401
*joint first authors
Murray K, Peters JE, Stellitano L, Winstone AM, Verity C, Will RG. Is there evidence of vertical transmission of variant CJD? Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry 2011; 82:729-31.
Peters JE, Salama AD, Ind PW. A case of Wegener’s granulomatosis presenting as acute systemic vasculitis following 20 years of limited tracheobronchial disease. Journal of Laryngology and Otology 2009; 123:1375-7.