News

Current Job Postings

T32 Training Grant in Cancer Health Disparities for Postdoctoral Fellows. For information, see here.

Assistant/Associate Professor Position, Center for Genetic Epidemiology. Interested applicants please apply here.

Steven Gazal Lab is actively searching for a Postdoctoral Research Associate. Interested applicants please apply here.

Chris Haiman Lab is actively searching for a Postdoctoral Research Associate. Interested applicants please apply here.

Wendy Setiawan Lab is actively searching for a Postdoctoral Research Associate. Interested applicants please apply here.

Recent News

• 1/2024 – Dr. Marlena Fejzo was interviewed on the Today Show and in People Magazine by Maria Shriver, about her work on Hyperemesis Gravidarum.
• 12/2023 – CGE principal investigators Dr. Marlena Fejzo and Dr. Nick Mancuso co-authored an international study in Nature proving hypersensitivity to the rise of the hormone GDF15 in pregnancy is the main cause of morning sickness and the severe condition Hyperemesis Gravidarum, and identified new ways we may be able to prevent and treat it. The study was picked up globally by over 90 media outlets including the New York Times, CNN, and the Wall Street Journal.
• 11/2023 – Dr. Nick Mancuso and Dr. Charleston Chiang published a method that can estimate heritability explained by local ancestry and evaluate stratification bias in admixture mapping studies in American Journal of Human Genetics. The study is led by a PhD student in CGE, Tsz Fung Chan.
• 11/2023 – Dr. Marlena Fejzo was named 2023’s Fiercest Women in Life Sciences.
• 11/2023 – Dr. Charleston Chiang received the Human Genetics and Genomics Advances award for outstanding research at the 2023 American Society of Human Genetics annual meeting, for a publication led by Grace Sheng that investigated regions inverted between different genome builds in humans.
• 9/2023 – Dr. Charleston Chiang, in collaboration with Drs. Wiemels and de Smith published a study evaluating the accuracy of current polygenic risk scores for childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia in Latino children in Human Genetics and Genomics Advances. The study was led by former PhD student in CGE, Soyoung Jeon.
• 7-8/2023 – Dr. Fejzo joined the Center for Genetic Epidemiology as an Assistant Professor of Clinical Population and Public Health Sciences, and her genetic work is profiled in the Irish Examiner and Inside Precision Medicine.
• 6/2023 – Dr. Fejzo, Dr. Mancuso, Dr. Cortessis, and colleagues publish their preprint elucidating the molecular mechanism of genetic variants in GDF15 in nausea and vomiting of pregnancy (currently under review in Nature), picked up by New Scientist and additional news outlets.
• 6/2023 – Dr. Charleston Chiang, has been appointed as the Associate Director of the Center for Genetic Epidemiology.
• 6/2023 – Drs. Haiman and Conti, together with former postdoc Dr. Darst (now at FHCRC) published a report in AJHG evaluating approaches for constructing polygenic risk scores for prostate cancer in men of African and European ancestry.
• 5/2023 – The Mancuso Lab published a simulator for transcriptome wide association studies in Bioinformatics.
• 4/2023 – Members of the Gazal Lab were part of eleven papers being released in a special issue of Science, including a paper on leveraging mammalian constraint to understand human diseases. Press coverage by USC is here.
• 4/2023 – Dr. Fei Chen received an American Cancer Society Institutional Research Grant from the Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center to study germline copy number variation in prostate cancer.
• 3/2023 – The Haiman Lab published a GWAS and meta-analysis of prostate cancer in men of African ancestry in European Urology. Press coverage by USC is here.
• 3/2023 – The Wiemels Lab with collaborators from Denmark and Sweden published the first GWAS hit for pediatric glioma, a truly orphaned disease.

Recent Success with Grant Funding

9/2023 – Charleston Chiang (PI), R01HG012605, “A genome-wide genealogical framework for statistical and population genetic analysis”

7/2023 – Christopher Haiman (PI), R01CA276826, “Leveraging whole-exome sequence data from diverse biobanks and cohorts to study rare coding variation in prostate cancer”

7/2023 – Adam de Smith (PI), Leukemia & Lymphoma Society CDP Scholar Award, “Leveraging Susceptible Populations and Unique Resources in a Pathway to Prevention of Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia”

7/2023 – Joseph Wiemels (PI), Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program, “Environmental smoking and inborn genetics: impact on pediatric brain cancers”

4/2023 – Fei Chen (PI), American Cancer Society Institutional Research Grant, “Evaluating the contribution of rare germline copy number variations to prostate cancer susceptibility”

4/2023 – Jalen Langie (Chiang Lab) (PI), F31CA278359, “Exploring the impact of genetic ancestry on acute lymphoblastic leukemia risk in Latino populations”

9/2022 – Nicholas Mancuso (co-I), P01CA196569, “Statistical Methods for Integrative Genomics in Cancer”

9/2022 – Charleston Chiang (PI), R01HG011646, “Leveraging the Evolutionary History to Improve Identification of Trait-Associated Alleles and Risk Stratification Models in Native Hawaiians”

9/2022 – Adam de Smith (PI), R03HD109778, “Genetic determinants of lymphocyte traits and risk of acute lymphoblastic leukemia in children with Down syndrome”

8/2022 – Steven Gazal (PI), R35GM147789, “Characterizing genetic signatures of natural selection to understand human diseases”

6/2022 – Joseph Wiemels (PI), R01CA268494, “Cytomegalovirus as an etiologic and clinico-pathogenic factor in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia”

5/2022 – Adam de Smith (PI), R01CA262263, “Understanding the Increased Risk of Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia in Latinos”