Habibul Ahsan

About

Habibul Ahsan is a faculty member involved in environmental health sciences (EHS) research, with a focus on environmental pollutants, biomarkers of exposure, effect, and susceptibility, as well as molecular and cellular processes related to environmental toxicity. His work aligns with the mission of the ChicAgo Center for Health and EnvironmenT (CACHET), and he is engaged in collaborative research within this field. As a full member of CACHET, he contributes to the center's activities, including participation in focus groups, utilization of facility cores, and community engagement efforts. His research emphasizes understanding the impact of environmental pollutants on health through biomarker development and molecular studies, supporting the center's goals of advancing environmental health sciences and translating findings into community and policy impacts.

Research topics

• Medicine
• Biology
• Internal medicine
• Genetics
• Chemistry
• Evolutionary biology
• Demography
• Environmental health
• Immunology
• Computational biology

Selected publications

• Large-scale cis- and trans-eQTL analyses identify thousands of genetic loci and polygenic scores that regulate blood gene expression

  Nature Genetics · 2021 · 2112 citations

  DOI

• Multi-ancestry genetic study of type 2 diabetes highlights the power of diverse populations for discovery and translation

  Nature Genetics · 2022 · 724 citations

  DOI

• Determinants of telomere length across human tissues

  Science · 2020 · 486 citations

  Telomere shortening is a hallmark of aging. Telomere length (TL) in blood cells has been studied extensively as a biomarker of human aging and disease; however, little is known regarding variability in TL in nonblood, disease-relevant tissue types. Here, we characterize variability in TLs from 6391 tissue samples, representing >20 tissue types and 952 individuals from the Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) project. We describe differences across tissue types, positive correlation among tissue typ…

  DOI

• Genetic drivers of heterogeneity in type 2 diabetes pathophysiology

  Nature · 2024 · 480 citations

  in a further 279,552 individuals of diverse ancestry, including 30,288 cases of T2D, and test their association with T2D-related vascular outcomes. Cluster-specific partitioned polygenic scores are associated with coronary artery disease, peripheral artery disease and end-stage diabetic nephropathy across ancestry groups, highlighting the importance of obesity-related processes in the development of vascular outcomes. Our findings show the value of integrating multi-ancestry genome-wide associat…

  DOI

• Identification of 371 genetic variants for age at first sex and birth linked to externalising behaviour

  Nature Human Behaviour · 2021 · 161 citations

  DOI

Recent grants

• ChicAgo Center for Health and EnvironmenT (CACHET)

  NIH · $20.9M · 2017–2027

• Enhancement and Maintenance of the HEALS cohort

  NIH · $1.7M · 2017–2023

• NIH Grant P20CA210305

  NIH · $1.0M · 2021

Frequent coauthors

• Muhammad G. Kibriya

  Chicago Department of Public Health

  2028 shared

• Brandon L. Pierce

  Chicago Department of Public Health

  1949 shared

• Farzana Jasmine

  Chicago Department of Public Health

  1932 shared

• Maria Argos

  1855 shared

• Tong Lin

  1842 shared

• Irene L. Andrulis

  Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute

  1786 shared

• Jenny Chang‐Claude

  1782 shared

• Marilie D. Gammon

  1760 shared

Similar researchers at University of Chicago

• Michael Greenstoneh-97
• Dezheng Huoh-82
• Louis Philipsonh-75