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Dr Eirini Marouli

Eirini

Reader in Computational Biology, Deputy Lead MSc Genomic Medicine, Lead Post Graduate Taught Courses (PGT), Deputy Lead EDI, Fellow Digital Environment Research Institute (DERI)

Centre: Clinical Pharmacology and Precision Medicine

Email: e.marouli@qmul.ac.uk
Twitter: @MarouliEirini

Profile

Dr Eirini Marouli is a Reader in Computational Biology at the William Harvey Research Institute, Queen Mary University of London. Dr Marouli’s research interests lie in the interface of genetics, bioinformatics and artificial intelligence. She has developed a BBC Documentary Reel on Adult height. 

Dr Marouli is the Deputy Lead for the MSc Genomic Medicine, WHRI Post-Graduate Taught Course (PGT) Lead and Deputy Equality Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Academic Lead, and Fellow at the Digital Environment Research Institute (DERI).

Dr Marouli boasts coherent and multidisciplinary research experience with high quality outputs across her research career. She has leading work in international consortia, working on cutting-edge research on complex traits and disease, thyroid function and thyroid cancer.

She graduated with a BSc in Biology and a MSc in Clinical Biochemistry from the University of Athens, Greece. Dr Marouli was awarded a PhD in Genetics from the University of Athens studying the genetic overlap between type 2 diabetes and psychiatric disease. Eirini joined the William Harvey Research Institute in July 2014, as a Greek State Scholarships Foundation Fellow. She completed her postdoctoral training with Professor Panos Deloukas. During this period, she had a leading role in the GIANT (Genetic Investigation of Anthropometric Traits) consortium, investigating the role of rare and low-frequency coding variants in human adult height (Marouli et al., Nature 2017).

She is running the Book Club at QMUL, focusing on topics related to Equality, Diversity, Inclusion and Mental Health.

Awards

  • Early Career Researcher of the Year – UK Biobank 2019 meeting
  • Nomination: American Society of Human Genetic’s Trainee Paper Spotlight 2018, for the paper: “Rare and low-frequency coding variants alter human adult height", Nature, 2017
  • 2016 ASHG/Charles J. Epstein Trainee Award for Excellence in Human Genetics Research -Semifinalist
  • The Genomics of Common Diseases congress, 2015, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge (Travel Grant)

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Research

Dr Marouli brings multi-disciplinary expertise involving her excellent background in both laboratory skills and bioinformatics expertise encompassing the biology of the thyroid gland and cancer, along with big data and multi-modal data analysis incorporating genetics. Dr Marouli’s leadership skills are reflected in the successful management of international projects and collaborations. Her work focuses on using human genetics to identify genes that influence common diseases and quantitative traits, including height and adiposity. Dr Marouli implements novel computational methods, including machine learning, to gain biological insights from human genetics and phenotypic data.

She has a leading role in the large international consortium (GIANT) that has discovered almost all of the genetic variants that are known to influence human height and obesity related traits. She also has leading role in projects collaborating with ThyroidOMICS consortium working on cutting-edge research on thyroid function. Dr Marouli specialises on the genetics of thyroid function and disease. Her recent work integrates the use of genetic data and a battery of state-of-the-art approaches, for causal inference and mendelian randomisation and machine learning to elucidate the genetic interplay between risk factors and disease. Dr Marouli has also leading work and contributions in global consortia (GLGC, CHARGE CARDIoGRAMplusC4D) for complex traits and diseases. In addition to gene discovery efforts, Dr Marouli is also interested in genetic-epigenetic approaches to complex phenotypes.

Key Publications

Full list of publications 

  • Marouli E, et al. "Rare and low-frequency coding variants alter human adult height." Nature (2017) 542(7640): 186-190
  • Marouli E, et al. Thyroid Function and the Risk of Alzheimer’s Disease: A Mendelian Randomization Study. Thyroid [Internet]. 2021 Dec 1 [cited 2022 May 6];31(12):1794–9. Available from: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34847795/
  • Marouli E, et al. Thyroid Function Affects the Risk of Stroke via Atrial Fibrillation: A Mendelian Randomization Study. J Clin Endocrinol Metab [Internet]. 2020 Aug 1 [cited 2022 May 6];105(8):2634–41. Available from: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32374820/
  • Marouli E, et al. Mendelian randomisation analyses find pulmonary factors mediate the effect of height on coronary artery disease. Communications biology. 2019;2:119.
  • Kuś A, Marouli E, P, et al. Variation in Normal Range Thyroid Function Affects Serum Cholesterol Levels, Blood Pressure, and Type 2 Diabetes Risk: A Mendelian Randomization Study. Thyroid [Internet]. 2021 May 1 [cited 2022 May 6];31(5):721–31. Available from: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32746749/
  • Kjaergaard AD, Marouli E, et al. Thyroid function, sex hormones and sexual function: a Mendelian randomization study. Eur J Epidemiol [Internet]. 2021 Mar 1 [cited 2022 May 6];36(3):335–44. Available from: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33548002/
  • Kuś A, Kjaergaard AD, Marouli E, et al. Thyroid Function and Mood Disorders: A Mendelian Randomization Study. Thyroid [Internet]. 2021 Aug 1 [cited 2022 May 6];31(8):1171–81. Available from: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33899528/
  • Ellervik C, Mora S, Kus A, Asvold B, Marouli E, et al. Effects of Thyroid Function on Hemostasis, Coagulation, and Fibrinolysis: A Mendelian Randomization Study. Thyroid [Internet]. 2021 Sep 1 [cited 2022 May 6];31(9):1305–15. Available from: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34210154/
  • Kjaergaard AD, Teumer A, Marouli E, et al. Thyroid function, pernicious anemia, and erythropoiesis: a two-sample Mendelian randomization study. Hum Mol Genet [Internet]. 2022 Feb 28 [cited 2022 May 6]; Available from: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35225327/

                                                                        

Sponsors

Collaborators

Internal
Panos Deloukas; Patricia Munroe; Greg Slabaugh; Federica Marelli-Berg; Julia Ramirez; Simon Lucas; Jane Batchelor;  Márta Korbonits; Daniel Harding

External
GIANT consortium collaborators

ThyroidOMICS consortium collaborators:
Joel Hirschhorn (Harvard); Tim Frayling (Exeter); Zoltan Kutalik (Switzerland); Adam E. Locke (Washington University); Sailaja Vedantam (Harvard); Loïc Yengo (University of Queensland); Marco Medici (Erasmus; The Netherlands); Aleksander Kus (Poland); Alexander Teumer (Germany); Sonja Berndt (NIH)

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