The Experimental Genomics research group focuses on molecular genetics of coronary artery disease (CAD), myocardial infarction (MI) and coronary artery calcification (CAC) as well as cardiomyopathy.
In the context of CAD/MI our group identified in collaboration with national and international collaborators more than 160 genomic loci to be associated with CAD/MI on a genome-wide significance level using genome-wide association studies (GWAS).
The functional role of most of these risk genes and the underlying mechanisms leading to CAD/MI remain unclear. To go beyond GWAS studies we aim to functionally understand the role of theses CAD/MI risk genes and their related diseases such as atherosclerosis, calcification, blood pressure, inflammation and intima-media thickness.
For this we have established a resource of knockout (KO) mice models, a platform for studying atherosclerosis in Zebrafish and cell-based assays. Recently, we have expanded our portfolio to iPS cell derived vascular smooth muscle cells.