Focus Areas in the Genomic Medicine Cycle
Major leadership positions
Director of Preventive Cardiology, Massachusetts General Hospital
Paul and Phyllis Fireman Endowed Chair in Vascular Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital
MGH Department/Division
Preventive Cardiology
MGH Unit(s)
Cardiology
Overview
Using genomics to discover the causal factors of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.
The Natarajan Lab focuses on the germline and somatic genetic drivers of human atherosclerosis applying advances in genomic profiling with concomitant methods development. The interdisciplinary group spans human genetics, computational biology, and clinical medicine. The lab spearheads and contributes to several research consortia, often spanning hundreds of investigators and millions of participants to achieve project goals.
Priority Projects
- Genetic Prediction: projects catalog the relevance of genetic alleles with cardiovascular disease across diverse populations and use advanced methods to generate informative genetic predictors. We investigate opportunities for using these predictors toward improved clinical outcomes.
- Genetic Discovery: projects aim to discover the heritable mechanisms of cardiovascular disease risk. These discoveries lead to new insights in cardiovascular disease biology. Furthermore, genetic mechanisms appearing to confer protection from cardiovascular disease represent highly promising therapeutic targets.
- Somatic Mosaicism: We and others have shown that some acquired mutations in blood cells represent new risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Project involve investigations to understand the mechanisms by which acquired mutations across diverse tissue types influence cardiovascular disease through multi-omics investigations.
- Clinical Research and Classical Epidemiology: projects use bioinformatic methods applied to diverse patient-derived data across to refine cardiovascular disease risk. We also use blood-based molecular profiling to glean mechanistic insights for newly discovered risk signals.
Lab Members
| Name: | Email: | Role: |
|---|---|---|
| Yvonne Fraser | yfraser [@] mgh.harvard.edu | Research Lab Manager |
| Tajmara Antoine | TRANTOINE [@] mgh.harvard.edu | Clinical Research Coordinator |
| Shriie Ganesh | SGANESH2 [@] mgh.harvard.edu | Clinical Research Coordinator |
| Sara Haidermota | SHAIDERMOTA [@] mgh.harvard.edu | Clinical Research Coordinator |
| Kim Lannery | KLANNERY [@] mgh.harvard.edu | Clinical Research Coordinator |
| Megan Wong | MWONG27 [@] mgh.harvard.edu | Clinical Research Coordinator |
| Tinamarie Desmarais | TDESMARAIS2 [@] PARTNERS.ORG | Research Nurse |
| Buu Truong | btruong [@] broadinstitute.org | Computational Biologist |
| Adyant Shankar | ASHANKAR1 [@] mgh.harvard.edu | Undergraduate Student |
| Nina Kathiresan | nkathire [@] broadinstitute.org | Undergraduate Student |
| Phoebe Finneran | PFINNERAN1 [@] mgh.harvard.edu | Medical Student |
| Amanda Jowell | AJOWELL [@] mgh.harvard.edu | Medical Student |
| Meghana Keshava | meghana_kamineni [@] hms.harvard.edu | Medical Student |
| Jiwoo Lee | jiwolee [@] broadinstitute.org | Medical Student |
| Mark Trinder | mtrinder [@] broadinstitute.org | Medical Student |
| Roger Zou | rzou [@] broadinstitute.org | Medical Student |
| Meaghan Parlee | mparlee [@] broadinstitute.org | Program Manager |
| Tiffany Bellomo | TBELLOMO [@] MGH.HARVARD.EDU | Resident |
| Melvin Joice | MJOICE [@] @PARTNERS.ORG | Resident |
| Pradeep Rajendran | PRAJENDRAN [@] PARTNERS.ORG | Resident |
| Nishant Uppal | nuppal [@] bwh.harvard.edu | Resident |
| S. Maryam Zekavat | mzekavat [@] broadinstitute.org | Resident |
| So Mi Jemma Cho | Fellow | |
| Jacqueline Dron | JDRON [@] mgh.harvard.edu | Fellow |
| David Feldman | DIFELDMAN [@] mgh.harvard.edu | Fellow |
| Thomas Gilliland | TCGILLILAND [@] MGH.HARVARD.EDU | Fellow |
| Sumeet Khetarpal | SKHETARPAL [@] PARTNERS.ORG | Fellow |
| Satoshi Koyama | skoyama [@] broadinstitute.org | Fellow |
| Tetsushi Nakao | tnakao [@] broadinstitute.org | Fellow |
| Yunfeng Ruan | YRUAN3 [@] mgh.harvard.edu | Fellow |
| Margaret Sunitha Selvaraj | MSSELVARAJ [@] mgh.harvard.edu | Fellow |
| Aeron Small | ASMALL [@] @BWH.HARVARD.EDU | Fellow |
| Md Mesbah Uddin | muddin [@] broadinstitute.org | Fellow |
| Sarah Urbut | SURBUT [@] mgh.harvard.edu | Fellow |
| Zhi Yu | zyu [@] broadinstitute.org | Fellow |
| Romit Bhattacharya | RBHATTACHARYA [@] MGH.HARVARD.EDU | Instructor |
| Akl Fahed | AFAHED [@] PARTNERS.ORG | Instructor |
| Michael Honigberg | MHONIGBERG [@] MGH.HARVARD.EDU | Instructor |
| Kaavya Paruchuri | KPARUCHURI [@] mgh.harvard.edu | Instructor |
| Aniruddh Patel | APATEL32 [@] PARTNERS.ORG | Instructor |
| Amy Sarma | ASARMA1 [@] PARTNERS.ORG | Instructor |
| Katharine Clapham | kclapham [@] broadinstitute.org | Affiliated Faculty Member |
| Ida Surakka | isurakka [@] broadinstitute.org | Affiliated Faculty Member |
| Whitney Hornsby | WHORNSBY [@] MGH.HARVARD.EDU | Associate Director |
Lab/Contact Telephone
617-724-3526
Primary Email
pnatarajan [@] mgh.harvard.edu
Lab Website
The Center for Genomic Medicine (CGM) comprises one of the largest and most vibrant hubs of genomic medicine research in the world. The CGM includes 46 faculty collaborating to define the ‘genomic medicine cycle’ – which envisages a genomics community seeking to advance research from basic genomics research to ultimately using genome information for diagnostics and targeted therapeutics. All of our investigators are faculty at Harvard Medical School, and many members of our community are also investigators at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT.
