Geneticist Eleftheria Zeggini leaves Cambridge to join Helmholtz Munich

Recruitment of computational genetics Professor Eleftheria Zeggini as the Director of a new Institute for Translational Genomics is part of the new digital health strategy at Helmholtz Zentrum München.

Zeggini, who was previously leading a team at the Wellcome Sanger Institute in Cambridge, will now integrate world-class epidemiology with big data in genomics.

The biomedical scientist Eleftheria Zeggini is an internationally renowned expert in big data analysis and well known speaker and opinion leader in the field of translational genomics.

Her ability to combine new technical approaches with leadership of international consortia at unprecedented size, has put her at the forefront of human genetics today.

“A more complete understanding of genomic disease etiologies will allow us to offer more personalized therapeutic solutions, and will help develop the precision prevention strategies our society really needs” said Zeggini.

An important basis for Professor Zeggini’s large-scale population studies is state-of-the-art, high-throughput sequencing (next-generation sequencing). Major discoveries resulting from the work of Zeggini and her team have uncovered specific genomic alterations in musculoskeletal and metabolic diseases such as osteoarthritis and diabetes.

“At Helmholtz Zentrum München and with a close collaboration with the School of Medicine at the Technical University of Munich we find a truly stellar environment for our research” she said.

“In addition to cutting edge research infrastructure, Helmholtz and Munich offer a wealth of collaborative opportunities with numerous world leading scientists across disciplines.”

“We are very excited that Professor Zeggini decided that the ideal environment for her visionary studies is here with us in Munich,” said Professor Matthias Tschöp, CEO of Helmholtz Zentrum München.

“As a young scientist, she already more than once discovered new paths toward personalized medicine and precision prevention. Our extensive epidemiology program that includes leadership of the German National Cohort (NAKO) along with our ambitious new initiatives in applied artificial intelligence and digital health will now offer Professor Zeggini synergistic opportunities to accelerate her research.”

Before moving to the Sanger Institute, Eleftheria Zeggini worked at the Universities of Manchester and Oxford, where, among other things, she made breakthrough discoveries in juvenile arthritis, rheumatic diseases and type II diabetes. In 2008, she moved to the Sanger Institute, where she focused on the genomic epidemiology of complex traits.

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