Brooke Wolford

About

Brooke N. Wolford has a PhD in Bioinformatics and Master in Statistics from the University of Michigan. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the K.G. Jebsen Center for Genetic Epidemiology in the Department for Public Health and Nursing under the mentorship of Professor Kristian Hveem. Brooke is working with the INTERVENE Project funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the leadership of Dr. Andrea Ganna and Professor Samuli Ripatti at the Finnish Institute for Molecular Medicine. In 2024 she will launch ProtectHearts, funded by Horizon Europe, as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow.

Brooke is a recent invitee to the K.G. Jebsen Academy of Young Medical Researchers as recognition for the 2022 Best Dissemination Award amongst K.G. Jebsen Centers across Norway. She is also a 2022 finalist for the Charles J. Epstein Trainee Awards for Excellence in Human Genetics Research given by the American Society of Human Genetics. Brooke is pursuing a research career combining statistical genetics, computational biology, and clinical application to fulfill the promise of precision medicine. She is also committed to communicating scientific findings to general audiences, teaching science literacy and quantitative skills to youth, and following open science practices.

During her graduate studies she was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow and Genome Sciences Predoctoral Trainee. She completed a dissertation titled “Genetic Discovery and Precision Medicine in Cardiovascular Diseases Using Electronic Health Record-linked Biobanks” under the mentorship of Dr. Cristen Willer and Dr. Michael Boehnke. Before graduate school, Brooke spent two years as a postbaccalaureate intramural research trainee in the National Human Genome Research Institute of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD studying the genetics of type 2 diabetes with Dr. Francis Collins. Brooke is a native of North Carolina and a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Quantitative Biology having earned highest honors and highest distinction.

Access Brooke's Curriculum Vitae for teaching experience, presentations, grants, and awards. View more publications at Google Scholar, PubMed, or ORCiD.

Institutional Responsibilities

K.G. Jebsen Center for Genetic Epidemiology Seminar Series Organizer (2022-Present)
NTNU Statistical Genetics Journal Club Coordinator (2021-Present)
Researchers' Night and Forskningsdagene Co-leader (October 2022)
Palestine-Norway Partnership to Enhance Population Genomics Education, Research, and Outreach to the Professional-Community (PaNomics) Summer School Lecturer (September 2022)
Genetic Epidemiology (SMED 8020, Norwegian Univ. of Science & Technology) Lecturer (2019-2022)

Research

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains the leading cause of death globally for men and women. How can we advance clinical risk prediction models for CVD? Large biobanks such as the Trøndelag Health Study integrate health records, biomarkers, proteomics, and genetic data. Brooke's research aims to use conventional risk factors, novel biomarkers, and polygenic scores (PGS)—a measure of an individuals’ genetic variants for CVD risk—to improve CVD risk prediction accuracy, especially in women and young adults.

Publications

Selected Publications

* indicates equal contributions

Aragam K*, Jiang T*, Goel A*, Kanoi S*, Wolford BN*, [60 authors], Willer CJ, Eloukas P, Kathiresan S, Butterworth A, on behalf of the CARDIoGRAMplusC4D Consortium. Discovery and systematic characterization of risk variants for coronary artery disease in over a million participants. Nature Genetics. PMID: 36474045. (06/12/2022)
Duda M*, Sovacool, KL*, [14 authors], Lapp Z*, Wolford BN*. Teaching Python for Data Science: Collaborative development of a modular and interactive curriculum. Journal of Open Source Education, 4(46), 138. PMID: 35187422. (17/12/2021)
Fan Y*, Wolford BN*, Lu H*, [20 authors], Willer CJ, Chen YE. Type 2 diabetes sex-specific effects associated with E167K coding variant in TM6SF2. iScience. PMID: 34746691. (19/11/2021)
COVID-19 Host Genetics Initiative (banner authorship). Mapping the human genetic architecture of COVID-19 by worldwide meta-analysis. Nature. PMID: 34237774. (08/07/2021)
Wolford BN*, Hornsby WE*, [19 authors], Milewicz DM, Willer CJ, Yang B. Clinical implications of identifying pathogenic variants in individuals with thoracic aortic dissection. Circulation Genomic and Precision Medicine 12(6): 273-280. PMID: 31211624. (18/06/2019)
Wolford BN, Willer CJ, and Surakka I. Electronic health records: the next wave of complex disease genetics. Human Molecular Genetics, 27:R14-R21. PMID: 29547983. (01/05/2018)
Kycia I, Wolford BN, [16 authors], Collins FS, Parker SCJ, Stitzel ML. A common type 2 diabetes risk variant potentiates activity of an evolutionarily conserved islet stretch enhancer and increases C2CD4A and C2CD4B expression. American Journal of Human Genetics 102(4):620-635. PMID: 29625024. (05/04/2018)

View more publications at Google Scholar, PubMed, or ORCiD.

Media

International research study finds new genetic links to heart disease

An international research study published in Nature Genetics in December 2022 revealed new information about the role genetics play in heart disease.

2022

Poster

Øvretveit, Karsten; Ingeström, Emma Maria Lovisa; Spitieris, Michail; Tragante, Vinicius; Wade, Kaitlin Hazel; Thomas, Laurent Francois. (2022) Polygenic predictions and interactions in hypertension. K.G. Jebsen for Genetic Epidemiology Symposium 2022-11-29 - 2022-11-30
Academic lecture

Øvretveit, Karsten; Ingeström, Emma Maria Lovisa; Spitieris, Michail; Tragante, Vinicius; Wade, Kaitlin Hazel; Thomas, Laurent Francois. (2022) Polygenic predictions and interactions in hypertension. Cardiac Exercise Research Group (CERG) Exercise in Medicine , Trondheim 2022-12-14 - 2022-12-15

Språkvelger

Brooke Wolford

Brooke Wolford

About

Institutional Responsibilities

Competencies

Research

Publications

Selected Publications

Media

International research study finds new genetic links to heart disease

2022