Professor of Epidemiology and Medicine, Head, Department of Public Health and Primary Care

Email: john.danesh@medschl.cam.ac.uk

Email EA: johndaneshpa@medschl.cam.ac.uk

Background

Professor Danesh trained in medicine at the University of Otago in New Zealand and at the Royal Melbourne Hospital in Australia. During his time as a Rhodes scholar, he received an MSc in Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and a DPhil in Epidemiology at the University of Oxford. He was elected to the Fellowship of the UK Academy of Medical Sciences in 2015.

Current roles

Since 2001, Danesh has been the Professor of Epidemiology and Medicine at the University of Cambridge. In 2004 he was made the Director, Department of Public Health and Primary Care and in 2018 John was also made a Faculty Member of Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute He holds a British Heart Foundation Professorship, a European Research Council Senior Investigator Award, and an NIHR Senior Investigator Award.

He has the following additional roles:

• British Heart Foundation (BHF) Professor of Epidemiology and Medicine, University of Cambridge
• Head, Department of Public Health and Primary Care, University of Cambridge
• Director, BHF Cardiovascular Epidemiology Unit
• Director, Health Data Research-Cambridge
• Faculty Member, Wellcome Sanger Institute
• Honorary Consultant, Cambridge University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

Research interests

Professor Danesh is the founder and director of the Cardiovascular Epidemiology Unit (CEU), a multi-disciplinary Unit of over 60 staff and students that aims to advance understanding and prevention of cardiovascular disease through population health research.

By 2018, he had published more than 250 papers, which had attracted >60,000 citations (h-index >105). His interests are reflected in the CEU’s main research themes, all of which are underpinned by research into quantitative methods:

1. Discovery genomics and cardiovascular genetics
2. Therapeutic target prioritisation
3. International vascular health
4. Screening and risk prediction
5. Systems genomics
6. Blood donor health and biology

Advisory roles

Professor Danesh chairs UK Biobank’s Outcomes Working Group and is a member of the UK Biobank Steering Committee. He is also a member of the steering committee of the NIHR BioResource.

He serves on editorial boards, eg: European Journal of Epidemiology, Human Genomics, and international pharma advisory boards, eg: Novartis and AstraZeneca.

At the local level, he is a member of the Executive Committee of the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre, and leads its Population and Quantitative Science programme. He is a member of the Cambridge University Hospital Research Board.

Career and Training Possibilities

Professor Danesh is actively involved in the supervision of postgraduate (eg, Masters and PhD) students, and the mentorship of advanced trainees and future research leaders.

Please contact Professor Danesh’s PA to find out more about exciting research and training opportunities in his Unit and Department (see top of page for contact details).

Research funding

Professor Danesh and the Cardiovascular Epidemiology Unit are supported by programme and project grants from a range of funding agencies, including: the British Heart Foundation, the UK Medical Research Council (MRC), National Institute of Health Research (NIHR), the European Commission, the European Research Council, the Wellcome Trust, US National Institutes of Health, NHS Blood and Transplant, and several industry sources.

Selected publications

Discovery genomics

Teumer A, Li Y, Ghasemi S, Prins BP…[co-authors]… Danesh J, Butterworth AS, Hung AM, Pattaro C, Köttgen A, Genome-wide association meta-analyses and fine-mapping elucidate novel pathways influencing albuminuria, Nature Communications. 2019 DOI: 10.17863/CAM.41560

Staley JR, Blackshaw J, Kamat MA, Ellis S, Surendran P, Sun BB, Paul DS, Freitag D, Burgess S, Danesh J, Young R, Butterworth AS. PhenoScanner V2: an expanded tool for searching human genotype-phenotype associations. Bioinformatics. 2019. DOI: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btw373

Sun B…[co-authors]…Danesh J, Runz H*, Butterworth A*. Consequences of natural perturbations of the human plasma proteome. Nature 2018 in press.

Saleheen D…[co-authors]…Danesh J*, Rader DJ*, Kathiresan S*. Human knockouts and phenotypic analysis in a cohort with a high rate of consanguinity. Nature 2017 12;544(7649):235-239.

Astle WJ…[co-authors]…Danesh J*, Roberts DJ*, Ouwehand WH*, Butterworth AS*, Soranzo N*. The allelic landscape of human blood cell trait variation and links to common complex disease. Cell 2016;167:1415-1429.

Cardiovascular genetics

Howson JMM…[co-authors]…Danesh J*, Butterworth AD*, Saleheen D*. Fifteen new risk loci for coronary artery disease highlight arterial wall-specific mechanisms. Nature Genetics 2017;7:1113-1119.

Surendran P…[co-authors]…Danesh J*, Wain LV*, Butterworth AS*, Howson JM*, Munroe PB*. Trans-ancestry meta-analyses identify rare and common variants associated with blood pressure and hypertension. Nature Genetics 2016;48:1151-61.

Nelson CP…[co-authors]…Danesh J, Thompson JR, Samani NJ. Genetically determined height and coronary artery disease. N Eng J Med 2015;372:1608-18.

Therapeutic target prioritisation

Paige E, …[co-authors]… Danesh J, Freitag DF, Paul DS, Mallat Z. Interleukin-6 Receptor Signalling and Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Growth Rates. Genomic and Precision Medicine. 2019.

Zanoni P…[co-authors]…Danesh J, Kathiresan S, Rader DJ. Rare variant in scavenger receptor BI raises HDL cholesterol and increases risk of coronary heart disease. Science 2016;351:1166-71.

Sarwar N…[co-authors]…Danesh J. Interleukin-6 receptor pathways in coronary disease. Lancet 2012;379:1205-1213.

Sarwar N…[co-authors]…Danesh J. Triglyceride-mediated pathways and coronary disease. Lancet 2010;375:1634-9.

Translational epidemiology

Di Angelantonio E…[co-authors]…Danesh J*, Hu FB*. Body-mass index and all-cause mortality. Lancet 2016:388:776-86.

Di Angelantonio E…[co-authors]…Danesh J. Association of cardiometabolic multimorbidity with mortality. JAMA 2015;314:52-60.

Kondapally Seshasai SR…[co-authors]…Danesh J. Diabetes mellitus, fasting glucose, and risk of cause-specific death. N Engl J Med 2011;364:829-841.

Disease risk prediction

Peloso GM, …[co-authors]… Danesh J, Tada H, Dewey FE, Carey DJ, Baras A, Kathiresan S. Rare Protein-Truncating Variants in APOB, Lower Low-Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol, and Protection Against Coronary Heart Disease. Genomic and Precision Medicine. 2019;12(5):e002376. doi: 10.1161/CIRCGEN.118.002376.

Di Angelantonio E… [co-authors]…Danesh J. Glycated hemoglobin measurement and prediction of cardiovascular disease. JAMA 2014 311(12):1225-33.

Kaptoge S…[co-authors]…Danesh J. C-reactive protein, fibrinogen, and cardiovascular disease prediction. N Engl J Med 2012;367:1310-20.

Di Angelantonio E…[co-authors]…Danesh J. Lipid-related markers and cardiovascular disease prediction. JAMA 2012;307:2499-2506.

Blood donor health and biology

Kaptoge S, Di Angelantonio E, Moore C, Walker M, Armitage J, Ouwehand WH, Roberts DJ, Danesh J, Thompson SG. Longer-term safety and efficiency of varying the frequency of whole blood donation (INTERVAL): extension of a randomised trial in 20,757 blood donors. The Lancet Haematology. 2019. DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(17)31928-1

Degenhardt F, Delgado G, …[co-authors] … Danesh J, Stefansson K, Hung AM, Heid IM, Scholz M, Teumer A, Köttgen A, Pattaro C. A catalog of genetic loci associated with kidney function from analyses of a million individuals. Nature Genetics. 2019;51(6):957-972. doi: 10.1038/s41588-019-0407-x

Yao C, Chen G, Song C, Keefe J, Mendelson M, Huan T, Sun BB, Laser A, Maranville JC, Wu H, Ho JE, Courchesne P, Lyass A, Larson MG, Gieger C, Graumann J, Johnson AD, Danesh J, Runz H, Hwang SJ, Liu C, Butterworth AS, Suhre K, Levy D. Genome‐wide mapping of plasma protein QTLs identifies putatively causal genes and pathways for cardiovascular disease. Nature Communications 2018, doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-06231-z.

Di Angelantonio E…[co-authors]…Danesh J. Efficiency and safety of varying the frequency of whole blood donation (INTERVAL): a randomised trial of 45 000 donors. Lancet 2017;390:2360-71.

Schormair B…[co-authors]. Identification of novel risk loci for restless legs syndrome in genome-wide association studies in individuals of European ancestry: a meta-analysis. Lancet Neurology 2017;16:898-907.

*denotes equal contribution