One of the central problems in biology is understanding how genomic variation affects genome function to influence phenotypes. NHGRI initiated a new program, the Impact of Genomic Variation on Function (IGVF) Consortium, to develop a framework for systematically understanding the effects of genomic variation on genome function and how these effects shape phenotypes. The program is based on recommendations from the 2019 workshop "From Genome to Phenotype: Genomic Variation Identification, Association, and Function in Human Health and Disease" (workshop report). IGVF is a research consortium that brings investigators together in a highly collaborative effort to examine how genomes function, how genome function shapes phenotypes, and how these processes are influenced by genomic variation. The program utilizes emerging experimental and computational genomic approaches to build a catalog of the impact of genomic variants on genome function and phenotypes.
Visit the IGVF Consortium website.
Participants and Projects
Awardee | Institution | Title | Award Number |
---|---|---|---|
Characterization Awards | |||
Jay Shendure Nadav Ahituv Martin Kircher | University of Washington UC San Francisco Charite Universitatsmedizin Berlin | Massively parallel characterization of variants and elements impacting transcriptional regulation in dynamic cellular systems | HG011966 |
Lea Starita Douglas Fowler | University of Washington | The Center for Actionable Variant Analysis; measuring variant function at scale | HG011969 |
Jesse Engreitz Thomas Quertermous | Stanford University | Stanford Center for Connecting DNA Variants to Function and Phenotype | HG011972 |
Marc Vidal | Dana-Farber Cancer Institute | Molecular phenotyping of ~100,000 coding variants across Mendelian disease genes | HG011989 |
Gary Hon William Kraus Nikhil Munshi | University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center | Multiscale functional characterization of genomic variation in human developmental disorders | HG011996 |
Hyejung Won Michael Love Karen Mohlke | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | Systematic in vivo characterization of disease-associated regulatory variants | HG012003 |
Luca Pinello Daniel Bauer Guillaume Lettre Richard Sherwood | Massachusetts General Hospital Children's Hospital Boston Montreal Heart Institute Brigham and Women's Hospital | Comprehensive characterization of variants underlying heart and blood diseases with CRISPR base editing | HG012010 |
Charles Gersbach Gregory Crawford Tim Reddy | Duke University | High-throughput functional annotation of gene regulatory elements and variants critical to complex cellular phenotypes | HG012053 |
Mapping Awards | |||
Jason Buenrostro Bradley Bernstein | Broad Institute, Harvard University Broad Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital | A foundational resource of functional elements, TF footprints and gene regulatory interactions | HG011986 |
Ansuman Satpathy | Stanford University | Single-cell Mapping Center for Human Regulatory Elements and Gene Activity | HG012076 |
Seyed Mortazavi Barbara Wold | UC Irvine California Institute of Technology | Center for Mouse Genomic Variation at Single Cell Resolution | HG012077 |
Predictive Modeling Awards | |||
Alan Boyle | University of Michigan | Predicting the impact of genomic variation on cellular states | HG011952 |
Andrew S. Allen William Majoros Charles D. Page Jr. | Duke University | Design, prediction, and prioritization of systematic perturbations of the human genome | HG011967 |
Soumya Raychaudhuri Alkes Price Shamil Sunyaev | Brigham and Women's Hospital Harvard School of Public Health Brigham and Women's Hospital | Predicting the impact of genetic variants, genes and pathways on human disease | HG012009 |
Predrag Radivojac | Northeastern University | Supporting IGVF by modeling genetics, function, and phenotype with machine learning | HG012022 |
Mark Craven | University of Wisconsin | Linking variants to multi-scale phenotypes via a synthesis of subnetwork inference and deep learning | HG012039 |
Zhiping Weng Manuel Garber Xihong Lin | University of Massachusetts Medical School University of Massachusetts Medical School Harvard School of Public Health | Predictive modeling of the functional and phenotypic impacts of genetic variants | HG012064 |
Anshul Kundaje | Stanford University | Predicting context-specific molecular and phenotypic effects of genetic variation through the lens of the cis-regulatory code | HG012069 |
Network Awards | |||
Harinder Singh Jishnu Das | University of Pittsburgh University of Pittsburgh | Linking genome variation to transcriptional network dynamics in human B cells | HG012041 |
Hao Wu Sreeram Kannan Hongjun Song | University of Pennsylvania | Defining causal roles of genomic variants on gene regulatory networks with spatiotemporally-resolved single-cell multiomics | HG012047 |
Danwei Huangfu Michael Beer Anna-Katerina Hadjantonakis | Sloan Kettering Institute for Cancer Research Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Sloan Kettering Institute for Cancer Research | Genomic control of gene regulatory networks governing early human lineage decisions | HG012051 |
Maike Sander Hannah Carter Kyle Gaulton Bing Ren | UC San Diego | The impact of genomic variation on environment-induced changes in pancreatic beta-cell states | HG012059 |
Chongyuan Luo Kathrin Plath Noah Zaitlen | UC Los Angeles | Leveraging genetic variation to dissect gene regulatory networks of reprogramming to pluripotency | HG012079 |
Christina Leslie Alexander Rudensky | Sloan Kettering Institute for Cancer Research | Deciphering the genomics of gene network regulation of T cell and fibroblast states in autoimmune inflammation | HG012103 |
Data and Administrative Coordinating Center Awards | |||
J. Michael Cherry Mark Gerstein Benjamin Hitz | Stanford University Yale University Stanford University | A Data and Administrative Coordinating Center for the Impact of Genomic Variation on Function Consortium | HG012012 |
Ting Wang Feng Yue | Washington University, Saint Louis Northwestern University | WashU-Northwestern Genomic Variation and Function Data and Administrative Coordinating Center | HG012070 |
Affiliate Members
Kristen Brennand, Yale University
The Brennand laboratory integrates human stem cell models and genomic engineering, towards resolving the complex cell-type-specific and context-dependent interplay between the many risk variants linked to brain disease.
Noël Burtt and Jason Flannick, Broad Institute
The Association to Function Knowledge Portal (A2FKP) project, led by Noel Burtt, Jason Flannick, and Kyle Gaulton, is an NHGRI-funded open-access resource that integrates genetic and genomic data, bioinformatic method results, and curated knowledge across common diseases within a web-portal with user friendly access mechanisms and visualizations. As part of the IGVF consortium, we hope to contribute tools and visualizations we develop for the A2FKP to help interpret data produced by IGVF, and in turn integrate data produced by IGVF into the A2FKP.
Alberto Ciccia, Columbia University
The Ciccia lab will utilize CRISPR-dependent base editing screens to investigate the function of nucleotide variants in DNA repair genes.
Kushal K. Dey, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
The Dey lab will implement machine learning algorithms to integrate common and rare variant genetics with IGVF functional data to (1) predict disease-critical units of variants, genes, and cell types, (2) identify causal mediator genes and pathways underlying disease variation, and (3) decode functional pleiotropy across diseases.
Steven Gazal, University of Southern California
The Gazal lab will integrate new functional datasets generated by the IGVF consortium with GWAS and constrained datasets to (1) improve functionally informed fine-mapping, (2) evaluate and combine new variant-to-gene linking strategies, and (3) understand the grammar of regulatory elements at a base-pair resolution.
Lee Grimes, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center
The Grimes lab applies single-cell technologies, computational genomics and systems biology to hematopoiesis to develop and promote a unifying framework for the analysis of genomic states with their developmental potentials and trajectories. By focusing on underlying genomic regulatory architectures, we will provide a new framework to incisively understand steady state hematopoiesis.
Rajat Gupta, Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital
The Gupta lab studies the genetics of Coronary Artery Disease and has developed methods to identify the effects of disease-associated variants using Perturb-seq and Cell Painting. We will work with the IGVF consortium group to identify causal variants, genes, and pathways associated with cardiometabolic disease.
Matthias Heinig, Helmholtz Zentrum München
The Heinig lab is developing computational models for the design and analysis of single cell perturbation experiments. They will collaborate with other IGVF teams to develop a biostatistical models for optimal experimental design and power analysis of single cell perturbation experiments coupled to single cell RNA sequencing. To analyze the downstream effects of perturbations of regulatory elements, network-based computational approaches will be developed to link downstream trans-target genes through molecular networks to the regulatory element.
Eugene Katsevich, University of Pennsylvania
The Katsevich Lab develops statistical and computational methods for the analysis of single-cell CRISPR screen data, including the SCEPTRE software. We will participate in the effort to build an analysis pipeline for the single-cell CRISPR screen data generated by the IGVF Consortium.
Wei Li, George Washington University
The Li lab is developing innovative computational methods to optimize genome engineering tools, gain insights into single-cell perturbation datasets, and inform the functions of human genome and genomic variation. Working with IGVF, we are interested in building novel models and gaining biological insights from pooled or single-cell CRISPR screens using various editing technologies.
Xuanyao Liu, University of Chicago
The Liu lab has developed statistical methods for mapping genetic variants associated with genes and pathways in trans, leveraging various data modalities such as bulk and single-cell RNA sequencing, as well as Perturb-seq data. We have also developed powerful tools to map cis- chromatin QTLs(cQTLs) in ChIP-seq, CUT&TAG and ACAT-seq data. We will work with the IGVF consortium group to comprehensively identify and comprehend trans-regulatory effects on genes and pathways and cis- effects on chromatin; and link these effects to disease.
Debora Marks, Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital
A mission of the Marks lab is to design interpretable AI methods for discovering genotype to phenotype mappings for clinical applications; for both rare and complex diseases, coding and noncoding genome. We will hence contribute expertise in new machine learning methodologies, help evaluate their hype, their reality and democratize the access to the learning tools.
Daniel McGrail, Lerner Research Institute, Cleveland Clinic
The McGrail lab integrates multi-omic, systems-level analyses with experimental biology in order to understand how molecular aberrations induce human disease. Working with the IGVF, we will focus on understanding how non-coding variants and genetic architecture influences immune cell function.
Jill Moore, University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School
The Moore lab will expand element-centric deep learning frameworks characterizing the functional capacity of individual cis-regulatory elements, to better understand the impact of genetic variation on gene regulation. In collaboration with other IGVF teams they will use these computational models to prioritize variants and elements for functional testing, taking into account sequence and cell type contexts.
Sara Mostafavi, University of Washington
The Mostafavi lab has been developing allele-aware deep neural network models for predicting how combinations of genetic variants at a given loci impact molecular phenotypes like chromatin accessibility. Working with IGVF, we are interested in applying and enhancing these models to ultimately understand the relationship between the full spectrum of genetic variation and cellular outcomes.
Len Pennacchio and Axel Visel, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
The Pennacchio and Visel labs will annotate noncoding DNA in the human genome with a particular focus on gene regulatory elements through epigenomic-derived data. They will perform in vivo studies of candidate gene regulatory sequences including allelic variants with presumed functional impacts on expression. The results will provide noncoding DNA annotation and in vivo validation.
Katie Pollard, Gladstone Institute of Data Science & Biotechnology, UC San Francisco, Chan Zuckerberg Biohub
The Pollard lab is developing machine learning methods that predict the effects of genetic variants on enhancer activity, genome folding, and epigenetic features. In collaboration with the Ahituv lab and PsychENCODE, we performed massively parallel reporter assays quantifying differential activity of variants in primary human cortical cells and organoids, which will be useful for IGVF methods development and benchmarking.
Laralynne Przybyla, University of California, San Francisco
Dr. Przybyla's group at the Laboratory for Genomics Research is focused on developing and implementing advanced human disease-relevant models and assays for functional genomics to probe pathways and identify mechanisms that underlie specific areas of disease etiology and progression. In the context of IGVF’s goals, we are implementing our sophisticated platforms to functionally link disease-associated genomic loci located in non-coding regions with gene expression in the context of chronic kidney disease, and we are developing improved computational approaches to identify putative candidate regulatory elements with high likelihood of functional links to disease-relevant gene targets that will be broadly applicable across disease areas and provide novel therapeutic strategies.
John Ray, Benaroya Research Institute
The Ray Lab will investigate tens of thousands of autoimmune disease-associated genetic variants for their effects on cis-regulatory element activity in primary immune cells. They will assess putative causality through combining massively parallel reporter assays with readouts of chromatin state and statistical fine-mapping, and determine variant effects on immune cell function using bulk and single-cell CRISPR-interference screening and base editing.
Thouis Ray Jones, Broad Institute
The Jones lab uses iPSC cell villages to study the cis-regulatory effects of variants on gene expression, chromatin organization and transcription factor binding as cells undergo differentiation. They will work with the IGVF consortium to identify causal variants in disease-relevant cell types.
Steve Reilly, Yale School of Medicine
The Reilly lab will contribute functional characterization of non-coding variants linked to human traits, disease, and evolution using a combination of CRISPR and episomal assays. We will collaborate with other IGVF teams to use this high-resolution data to improve variant effect predictors.
Neville Sanjana, New York Genome Center
The Sanjana Lab has identified causal variants for blood traits and their target genes in cis and in trans by combining multi-ancestry genome-wide association studies with CRISPR perturbations and single-cell multiomics. We have also profiled the genetic determinants of chromatin accessibility by combining CRISPR loss-of-function screens with single-cell ATAC-seq, creating an atlas of chromatin modifying complexes/proteins and their impact on changes in chromatin accessibility across the human genome.
Davide Serrugia, St. Anna Children's Cancer Research Institute
The Seruggia lab will develop tiling nuclease and base editor screens to study non-coding sequence variation associated with pediatric leukemia. We plan to dissect non-coding regulatory elements linked to disease, identify target genes and describe their function in hematopoiesis and leukemia.
Tychele Turner, Washington University in St. Louis
The Turner Lab's initial planned contribution is focused on the genomic, epigenomic, and transcriptomic characterization of well-known human neuronal cell lines and high-throughput functional modeling of genomic variation identified in neurodevelopmental disorders for which we have funding from an R01 grant awarded to my lab from the National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH126933). We use both experimental and computational analyses, and our work will provide a framework for us to continue to study the role of genomic variation in neurodevelopmental disorders, as well as provide information relevant for others in the genomics and neuroscience communities.
Han Xu, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
The Xu lab will develop computational methods to minimize the impact of system biases and off-target effects in single-cell CRISPR perturbation screens. They will also leverage the screens on TFs, epigenetic regulators, and cis-regulatory elements to understand how genetic variations perturb transcriptional regulatory networks to cause phenotypic change and disease.
Stephen Yi, University of Texas at Austin
The Yi lab has developed computational and systems biology approaches to investigate the functional impact of coding and noncoding variants on signaling network perturbations in biology. In collaboration with other IGVF members, we will refine and customize our multiomics-integrated network models, coupled with single cell data and deep learning framework for high-resolution characterization and better understanding of regulatory mechanisms in development and disease.
Anny Xiaobo Zhou, Harvard Medical School
The Zhou lab will screen functional genetic variants associated with pulmonary diseases using massively parallel reporter assay and PERTURB-seq assay in various lung relevant cell types, mainly airway epithelial cells, lung fibroblasts and endothelial cells. Another contribution of her lab to the IGVF may also include the chromatin interaction, single cell gene expression and open chromatin data from normal and diseased human lung tissues.
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Last updated: November 5, 2024