Cassia Williams-Rogers
Program: Molecular Genetics and Genomics
Current advisor: Nathan Stitziel, MD, PhD
Undergraduate university: Carnegie Mellon University
Research summary
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death in the world, with the most common type being coronary artery disease (CAD). Heritability of CAD has been estimated to be 40-60%, indicating genetics is an important component of disease development. Large population genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified hundreds of CAD-associated variants. However, the cellular level effects of these variants and their roles in disease progression is relatively understudied, particularly as many of these variants occur in non-coding regions. To address this, we will perform paired single-nucleus RNA-seq and ATAC-seq (snMultiome) assays on human coronary arteries to more deeply probe cell-specific states, identify causal quantitative trait loci (QTLs), and predict variant effects on genetic programs associated with CAD. As proof of concept, we previous generated and analyzed multiome data on 44 human coronary artery samples. We propose conduction of an additional 300 snMultiome studies in human coronary artery tissue toward creation of a robust dataset poised to advance current understanding of the complex genetic underpinnings of CAD.
Graduate publications