Kathryn L. Lunetta

About

Kathryn L. Lunetta, PhD, is a Professor of Biostatistics and a statistical geneticist with more than 20 years of experience in statistics and genetics research. She has extensive experience with the design and analysis of genome-wide association studies and sequencing studies, collaborating on several large, national, and international genetic epidemiology studies at Boston University and with the Framingham Heart Study. Her methodological research focuses on statistical problems and study design and analysis issues in human genetics, particularly in the mapping of complex genetic diseases. Her collaborative work spans multiple fields, including the genetics of atrial fibrillation, healthy aging, reproduction, and Alzheimer’s disease. She is a member of the CHARGE consortium and participates on the Steering and Analysis committees, as well as a TOPMed investigator and analysis committee member. She serves as senior/primary statistician on several Alzheimer’s-related projects and for the Framingham Heart Study Atrial Fibrillation working groups, advising on methodology and providing analysis supervision. Additionally, she is a multi-Principal Investigator of a project investigating immune cell and brain aging biomarkers related to cognitive aging.

Research topics

• Biology
• Genetics
• Medicine
• Internal medicine
• Bioinformatics
• Computational biology
• Evolutionary biology
• Gerontology
• Computer Science
• Physiology

Selected publications

• New insights into the genetic etiology of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias

  Nature Genetics · 2022 · 2403 citations

  Characterization of the genetic landscape of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and related dementias (ADD) provides a unique opportunity for a better understanding of the associated pathophysiological processes. We performed a two-stage genome-wide association study totaling 111,326 clinically diagnosed/'proxy' AD cases and 677,663 controls. We found 75 risk loci, of which 42 were new at the time of analysis. Pathway enrichment analyses confirmed the involvement of amyloid/tau pathways and highlighted mi…

  DOI

• Sequencing of 53,831 diverse genomes from the NHLBI TOPMed Program

  Nature · 2021 · 2261 citations

  . In the first 53,831 TOPMed samples, we detected more than 400 million single-nucleotide and insertion or deletion variants after alignment with the reference genome. Additional previously undescribed variants were detected through assembly of unmapped reads and customized analysis in highly variable loci. Among the more than 400 million detected variants, 97% have frequencies of less than 1% and 46% are singletons that are present in only one individual (53% among unrelated individuals). These…

  DOI

• Inherited causes of clonal haematopoiesis in 97,691 whole genomes

  Nature · 2020 · 726 citations

  DOI

• Exceptionally low likelihood of Alzheimer’s dementia in APOE2 homozygotes from a 5,000-person neuropathological study

  Nature Communications · 2020 · 484 citations

  Each additional copy of the apolipoprotein E4 (APOE4) allele is associated with a higher risk of Alzheimer's dementia, while the APOE2 allele is associated with a lower risk of Alzheimer's dementia, it is not yet known whether APOE2 homozygotes have a particularly low risk. We generated Alzheimer's dementia odds ratios and other findings in more than 5,000 clinically characterized and neuropathologically characterized Alzheimer's dementia cases and controls. APOE2/2 was associated with a low Alz…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Genetic insights into biological mechanisms governing human ovarian ageing

  Nature · 2021 · 440 citations

  DOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant R56AG029451

  NIH · $474k · 2018

• IDENTIFICATION OF COMMON GENETIC VARIANTS FOR ATRIAL FIBRILLATION AND PR INTERVAL

  NIH · $13.6M · 2009–2026

• IDENTIFICATION OF COMMON GENETIC VARIANTS FOR ATRIAL FIBRILLATION AND PR INTERVAL

  NIH · $7.0M · 2009–2018

Frequent coauthors

• Emelia J. Benjamin

  Boston Medical Center

  730 shared

• Patrick T. Ellinor

  532 shared

• Steven A. Lubitz

  Broad Institute

  508 shared

• Joanne M. Murabito

  368 shared

• Lu‐Chen Weng

  Brigham and Women's Hospital

  313 shared

• Honghuang Lin

  University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School

  297 shared

• Daniel Levy

  National Heart Lung and Blood Institute

  295 shared

• André G. Uitterlinden

  289 shared

Education

• PhD, Biostatistics

  University of Michigan

  1996

• MS, Biostatistics

  University of Michigan

  1993

• BA

  Grinnell College

  1989

Similar researchers at Boston University

• Alexa S. Beiserh-188
• Gina Marie Pelosoh-99
• Chunyu Liuh-95