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Genetic Epidemiology Unit

  • In Genetic Epidemiology, we investigate the influence of genetic variants and their interaction with lifestyle and environmental factors for diseases or disease-relevant parameter in humans.
  • At the Department of Genetic Epidemiology at the University of Regensburg, we conduct and analyze molecular epidemiological studies. We develop methododology and software for the analyses of high-dimensional data.
  • We work in large international consortia for genome-wide association studies (GWAS) for various diseases. GWAS are one of the most successful approaches to identify the genetics of complex diseases. The genes in GWAS association signals for diseases and disease-relevant parameters are more than twice as likely successful in drug development pipelines. Genes with evidence for human genetic association are thus considered promising drug targets for the respective diseases. GWAS analyses imply large, high-dimensional data ("big data"). Big data requires specific biostatistical and bioinformatic methodology for integrating various data sources to help unravel the physiological and clinical relevance.
  • Our genetic epidemiological research is funded by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG), the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, BMBF), the?Bavarian State Ministry for Science and Art (Bay. Staatsministerium für Wissenschaft und Kunst) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Selected research projects

  • the AugUR study (DFG-HE 3690/7-1, DFG-BR 6028/2-1, BMBF 01ER1206, BMBF 01ER1507)
  • Genetics of kidney function decline (SFB-1350 and TRR 374)
    • Subproject C6: Prioritising genes for kidney function decline in the population and high-risk groups
    • Subproject B2: Urinary vesicles as signal carriers and markers of kidney function development
    • INF-Project: Platforms for bioinformatics methodology and gene prioritisation
  • Meta- versus mega-approaches for genotype-imputation (DFG-HE 3690/5-1)
  • Genetics of AMD (International AMD Genomics Consortium, NIH-RES511967 and NIH-RES516564)

Selected publications

  • Wiegrebe S, Gorski M, Herold JM, Stark KJ, Thorand B, Gieger C, B?ger CA, Sch?del J, Hartig F, Chen H, Winkler TW, Küchenhoff H, Heid IM. Analyzing longitudinal trait trajectories using GWAS identifies genetic variants for kidney function decline. Nature Communicatons 2024. 15(1):10061. link
  • Herold JM, Wiegrebe S, Nano J, Jung B, Gorski M, Thorand B, Koenig W, Zeller T, Zimmermann ME, Burkhardt R, Banas B, Küchenhoff H, Stark KJ, Peters A, B?ger CA, Heid IM. Population-based reference values for kidney function and kidney function decline in 25- to 95-year-old Germans without and with diabetes. Kidney International 2024. 106(4):699-711. link

  • Herold JM, Nano J, Gorski M, Winkler TW, Stanzick KJ, Zimmermann ME, Brandl C, Peters A, Koenig W, Burkhardt R, Gessner A, Heid IM, Gieger C, Stark KJ. Polygenic scores for estimated glomerular filtration rate in a population of general adults and elderly - comparative results from the KORA and AugUR study. BMC Genomic Data 2023. 1(24). 28. link

  • Herold JM, Zimmermann ME, Gorski M, Günther F, Weber BHF, Helbig H, Stark KJ, Heid IM, Brandl C. Genetic Risk Score Analysis Supports a Joint View of Two Classification Systems for Age-Related Macular Degeneration. Investigative ophthalmology & visual science 2023. 12(64). 31. link

  • Stanzick KJ, Stark KJ, Gorski M, Sch?del J, Krüger R, Kronenberg F, Warth R, Heid IM, Winkler TW. KidneyGPS: a user-friendly web application to help prioritize kidney function genes and variants based on evidence from genome-wide association studies. BMC Bioinformatics 2023. 1(24). 355. link

  • Herold JM, Zimmermann ME, Gorski M, Günther F, Weber BHF, Helbig H, Stark KJ, Heid IM, Brandl C. Genetic Risk Score Analysis Supports a Joint View of Two Classification Systems for Age-Related Macular Degeneration. Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science 2023. 12(64). 31. link

  • Brandl C, Günther F, Zimmermann ME, Hartmann KI, Eberlein G, Barth T, Winkler TW, Linkohr B, Heier M, Peters A, Li JQ, Finger RP, Helbig H, Weber BHF, Küchenhoff H, Mueller A, Stark KJ, Heid IM. Incidence, progression and risk factors of age-related macular degeneration in 35–95-year-old individuals from three jointly designed German cohort studies. BMJ Open Ophth 2022. 1(7). e000912. link

  • Gorski M, Rasheed H, Teumer A, Thomas LF, … , Pattaro C, K?ttgen A, Kronenberg F, Heid IM. Genetic loci and prioritization of genes for kidney function decline derived from a meta-analysis of 62 longitudinal genome-wide association studies. Kidney international 2022.?102(3):624-639. link

  • Stanzick KJ, Li Y, Schlosser P, Gorski M, ..., Pattaro C, K?ttgen A, Stark KJ, Heid IM, Winkler TW. Discovery and prioritization of variants and genes for kidney function in 1.2 million individuals. Nature Communications 2021. 1(12). 4350. link
  • Fritsche LG, Igl W, ..., Abecasis GR, Heid IM. A large genome-wide association study of age-related macular degeneration highlights contributions of rare and common variants. Nature Genetics 2016. 2(48). 134–143. link

Sylvia Pfreintner - 02.07.2025 09:53

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