Andreas Pfenning
· Associate ProfessorCarnegie Mellon University · Ray and Stephanie Lane Computational Biology Department
Active 2014–2025
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About
The goal of the Pfenning group is to build a set of computational and genomic tools to study how genome sequence influences neural cells, neural circuits, disease, and behavior. The group is conducting research on the genetic mechanisms of Alzheimer’s disease, the epigenetics of aging, and evolution of language behavior.
Research topics
- Computer Science
- Engineering
- Biology
- Evolutionary biology
- Medicine
- Ecology
- Physics
- Genetics
- Virology
- Quantum mechanics
Selected publications
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2020 · 109 citations
category, suggesting that they are at high risk for SARS-CoV-2 infection. We employed a protein structural analysis to qualitatively assess whether amino acid changes at variable residues would be likely to disrupt ACE2/SARS-CoV-2 binding, and found the number of predicted unfavorable changes significantly correlated with the binding score. Extending this analysis to human population data, we found only rare (<0.1%) variants in 10/25 binding sites. In addition, we observed evidence of positive s…
The functional and evolutionary impacts of human-specific deletions in conserved elements
Science · 2023 · 76 citations
and developmental genes involved in myelination and synaptic function. Our data provide a rich resource to investigate the evolutionary mechanisms driving new traits in humans and other species.
Loss of epigenetic information as a cause of mammalian aging
Cell · 2024-02-01 · 38 citations
erratumOpen accessCell Reports · 2024-10-23 · 15 citations
articleOpen accessKey mechanisms underlying chronic pain occur within the dorsal horn. Genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have identified genetic variants predisposed to chronic pain. However, most of these variants lie within regulatory non-coding regions that have not been linked to spinal cord biology. Here, we take a multi-species approach to determine whether chronic pain variants impact the regulatory genomics of dorsal horn neurons. First, we generate a large rhesus macaque single-nucleus RNA sequenci…
Frontiers in Genetics · 2025-04-09 · 13 citations
articleOpen accessSenior authorIntroduction: Transcriptional regulation is an important process wherein non-protein coding enhancer sequences play a key role in determining cell type identity and phenotypic diversity. In neural tissue, these gene regulatory processes are crucial for coordinating a plethora of interconnected and regionally specialized cell types, ensuring their synchronized activity in generating behavior. Recognizing the intricate interplay of gene regulatory processes in the brain is imperative, as mounting…
Recent grants
Frequent coauthors
- 64 shared
Sven Höfling
University of Würzburg
- 64 shared
Ricardo Antonio Rosselló
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- 64 shared
Ute Hochgeschwender
Central Michigan University
- 64 shared
Jason T. Howard
Rockefeller University
- 40 shared
Fabian Hartmann
- 28 shared
L. Worschech
University of Würzburg
- 22 shared
Tobias Huber
University of Würzburg
- 20 shared
Morgan Wirthlin
Carnegie Mellon University
Labs
Education
- 1994
Ph.D., Computer Science
Carnegie Mellon University
- 1991
M.S., Computer Science
Carnegie Mellon University
- 1988
B.S., Computer Science
University of California, San Diego
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