Special Guest Seminar

16.12.2021 at 18 – 19
President auditorium, Visitor and Innovation Centre Joki, BioCity
Hybrid event, a Zoom link will be available for registered participants.
Glögi and cookies will be served at 17.30

Prof. dr. Lude Franke, Department of Genetics, University Medical Centre Groningen, Netherlands: “Towards personalised, directed gene regulatory networks for better understanding common and rare diseases”

Host: Riitta Lahesmaa (rilahes@utu.fi)

Register latest December 16th at 12.00 at: https://link.webropolsurveys.com/S/7CBE4205F5B0DBC4

Zoom link and iCalendar invitation to join the online event will be sent to all registered participants.

Special Guest Seminar is jointly organised by InFLAMES Flagship, Lifespan research program and Turku Bioscience. For further information contact Anne Lahdenperä (ankahy@utu.fi) or Riitta Lahesmaa (rilahes@utu.fi), University of Turku.

Please note: Corona passport and ID are checked at Visitor and Innovation Centre Joki so please have them with you for the seminar.

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Dr. Lude Franke is Full Professor of Functional Genomics in the Department of Genetics, University Medical Centre Groningen, where he guides his group on multi-omics data generation and analysis. His research group focuses in the development of computational methods to identify the downstream molecular effects of these disease-associated genetic variants.

The research line that he has set out over the last years involves the development and application of computational algorithms to functional genomics datasets. Lude Franke’s group is currently concentrating on integrating large-scale multi-omics datasets by conducting large-scale trans-QTL meta-analyses in >30,000 samples (Vosa et al, BioRxiv 2018) in conjunction with single-cell RNA-seq data (Van der Wijst et al, Nature Genetics 2018) with the principal aims to conduct eQTL meta-analysis and to reconstruct personalized regulatory networks that can be used to better understand disease-associated genetic variants. To do this optimally, they have initiated the single-cell eQTL consortium where >20 international research groups work towards a large-scale federated cell-type specific eQTL analysis in >3,000 samples and reconstruction of cell-type specific gene regulatory networks (Van der Wijst, eLife 2020).

Most recently, Lude Franke has initiated and leads the Lifelines COVID19 research project and accompanying CoronaBarometer website, a questionnaire-based study in 167,000 Lifelines biobank participants with the aim to contribute to the identification of risk factors for COVID19 susceptibility and severity, and to longitudinally study the impact of the COVID19 pandemic on the well-being of Dutch citizens.

Lude Franke has also received many prestigious grants such as  VENI, VIDI, VICI, Oncode and ERC Starting Grants and he helds membership of the Young Academy (de Jonge Akademie, KNAW).

   Relevant papers:

1. Large-scale cis-and trans-eQTL analyses identify thousands of genetic loci and polygenic scores that regulate blood gene expression. Urmo Võsa, Annique Claringbould, Harm-Jan Westra, Marc Jan Bonder, Patrick Deelen, …, Markus Scholz, Joseph Powell, Greg Gibson, Tõnu Esko, Lude Franke. Nat Genet. 2021 Sep;53:1300–1310
2. Single-cell RNA sequencing identifies celltype-specific cis-eQTLs and co-expression QTLs. van der Wijst MGP, Brugge H, de Vries DH, Deelen P, Swertz MA; LifeLines Cohort Study; BIOS Consortium, Franke L. Nat Genet. 2018 Apr;50(4):493-497.
3. Disease variants alter transcription factor levels and methylation of their binding sites. BonderMJ, Luijk R, Zhernakova DV, Moed M, Deelen P, Vermaat M, van Iterson M, van Dijk F, van Galen M, Bot J, Slieker RC, Jhamai PM, Verbiest M, Suchiman HE, Verkerk M, van der Breggen R, van Rooij J, Lakenberg N, Arindrarto W, Kielbasa SM, Jonkers I, van ‘t Hof P, Nooren I, Beekman M, Deelen J, van Heemst D, Zhernakova A, Tigchelaar EF, Swertz MA, Hofman A, Uitterlinden AG, Pool R, van Dongen J, Hottenga JJ, Stehouwer CD, van der Kallen CJ, Schalkwijk CG, van den Berg LH, van Zwet EW, Mei H, Li Y, Lemire M, Hudson TJ; BIOS Consortium, Slagboom PE, Wijmenga C, Veldink JH, van Greevenbroek MM, van Duijn CM, Boomsma DI, Isaacs A, Jansen R, van Meurs JB, ‘t Hoen PA, Franke L, Heijmans BT. Nat Genet. 2017 Jan;49(1):131-138
4. Identification of context-dependent expression quantitative trait loci in whole blood. Zhernakova DV, Deelen P, Vermaat M, van Iterson M, van Galen M, Arindrarto W, van ‘t Hof P, Mei H, van Dijk F, Westra HJ, Bonder MJ, van Rooij J, Verkerk M, Jhamai PM, Moed M, Kielbasa SM, Bot J, Nooren I, Pool R, van Dongen J, Hottenga JJ, Stehouwer CD, van der Kallen CJ, Schalkwijk CG, Zhernakova A, Li Y, Tigchelaar EF, de Klein N, Beekman M, Deelen J, van Heemst D, van den Berg LH, Hofman A, Uitterlinden AG, van Greevenbroek MM, Veldink JH, Boomsma DI, van Duijn CM, Wijmenga C, Slagboom PE, Swertz MA, Isaacs A, van Meurs JB, Jansen R, Heijmans BT, ‘t Hoen PA, Franke L. Nat Genet. 2017 Jan;49(1):139-145. doi: 10.1038/ng.3737
5. Gene expression analysis identifies global gene dosage sensitivity in cancer. FehrmannRS, Karjalainen JM, Krajewska M, Westra HJ, Maloney D, Simeonov A, Pers TH, Hirschhorn JN, Jansen RC, Schultes EA, van Haagen HH, de Vries EG, te Meerman GJ, Wijmenga C, van Vugt MA, Franke L. Nat Genet. 2015 Feb;47(2):115-25.