Krina Zondervan

Last updated

Krina Tynke Zondervan
Alma mater University of Oxford
Leiden University
Erasmus University Rotterdam
Scientific career
InstitutionsUniversity of Oxford
University of Pittsburgh
Queensland Institute of Technology
Thesis The epidemiology of chronic pelvic pain in women  (1999)

Krina Tynke Zondervan is a Dutch biomedical scientist who is a Professor of Genomic Epidemiology at the University of Oxford. She serves on the board of the World Endometriosis Society.

Contents

Early life and education

Zondervan was born in the Netherlands. [1] She was a masters student in biomedical sciences at the Leiden University. [2] She moved to the University of Oxford as an Erasmus Programme student in 1993, where she worked toward a doctorate in the epidemiology of chronic pelvic pain. [3] She was awarded a Medical Research Council Research Fellowship to work on Genetic Epidemiology. She was part of the Wellcome Centre for Human Genetics in genetic epidemiology. During this fellowship she earned an additional master's degree in genetic epidemiology at the Erasmus University Rotterdam. She completed research projects at the Queensland Institute of Technology and University of Pittsburgh.[ citation needed ]

Research and career

Zondervan was made a Wellcome Trust Research Development Fellow in 2007. She was made Director of the Endometriosis CaRe centre in Oxford in 2012. She was promoted to Professor of Genomic Epidemiology and Fellow of St Edmund Hall in 2015. [1]

Zondervan's research considers the pathogenesis of women's health conditions through the use of genomic and environmental epidemiological research. She is particularly focussed on endometriosis, a chronic inflammatory condition that involves endometrial-like cells in the uterus. The condition impacts up to 10% of reproductive-age women and has very few effective treatments. [2] [4] She has studied the genetic factors that underpin risk to endometriosis, and uses this work to design new therapeutic treatments. [5] [6] [7]

Zondervan founded the International Endometriosis Genome Consortium who oversee genome-wide association studies of endometriosis. The consortium, which research centres around the world who collect data on tens of thousands of women suffering from endometriosis. [8] Together with Stacey Missmer at Michigan State University Zondervan led the development of phenotypic tools (the World Endometriosis Research Foundation Endometriosis Phenome and Biobanking Harmonisation Projec, WERF EPHect), which looks to standardise the reporting and processing of endometriosis patient information. [2] [9]

Selected publications

Zondervan has written for The Conversation . [10]

Personal life

Zondervan is married with two daughters. [3]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Phenotype</span> Composite of the organisms observable characteristics or traits

In genetics, the phenotype is the set of observable characteristics or traits of an organism. The term covers the organism's morphology, its developmental processes, its biochemical and physiological properties, its behavior, and the products of behavior. An organism's phenotype results from two basic factors: the expression of an organism's genetic code and the influence of environmental factors. Both factors may interact, further affecting the phenotype. When two or more clearly different phenotypes exist in the same population of a species, the species is called polymorphic. A well-documented example of polymorphism is Labrador Retriever coloring; while the coat color depends on many genes, it is clearly seen in the environment as yellow, black, and brown. Richard Dawkins in 1978 and then again in his 1982 book The Extended Phenotype suggested that one can regard bird nests and other built structures such as caddisfly larva cases and beaver dams as "extended phenotypes".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Endometriosis</span> Disease of the female reproductive system

Endometriosis is a disease of the female reproductive system in which cells similar to those in the endometrium, the layer of tissue that normally covers the inside of the uterus, grow outside the uterus. Lesions can be found on ovaries, fallopian tubes, tissue around the uterus and ovaries (peritoneum), intestines, bladder, and diaphragm; it may also occur in other parts of the body. Some symptoms include pelvic pain, heavy and painful periods, pain with bowel movements, painful urination, pain during sexual intercourse and infertility. Nearly half of those affected have chronic pelvic pain, while in 70% pain occurs during menstruation. Infertility occurs in up to half of affected individuals. About 25% of individuals have no symptoms and 85% of those seen with infertility in a tertiary center have no pain. Endometriosis can have both social and psychological effects.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">UK Biobank</span> Long-term biobank study of 500,000 people

UK Biobank is a large long-term biobank study in the United Kingdom (UK) which is investigating the respective contributions of genetic predisposition and environmental exposure to the development of disease. It began in 2006.

Genetic discrimination occurs when people treat others differently because they have or are perceived to have a gene mutation(s) that causes or increases the risk of an inherited disorder. It may also refer to any and all discrimination based on the genotype of a person rather than their individual merits, including that related to race, although the latter would be more appropriately included under racial discrimination. Some legal scholars have argued for a more precise and broader definition of genetic discrimination: "Genetic discrimination should be defined as when an individual is subjected to negative treatment, not as a result of the individual's physical manifestation of disease or disability, but solely because of the individual's genetic composition." Genetic Discrimination is considered to have its foundations in genetic determinism and genetic essentialism, and is based on the concept of genism, i.e. distinctive human characteristics and capacities are determined by genes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology</span> Indian scientific research institute

CSIR Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (CSIR-IGIB) is a scientific research institute devoted primarily to biological research. It is a part of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), India.

David Benjamin Goldstein is an American human geneticist. Goldstein is founding Director of the Institute for Genomic Medicine at the Columbia University Medical Center, Professor of Genetics and Development and directs the genomics core of Epi4K and administrative cores of Epi4K with Dan Lowenstein and Sam Berkovic.

Eleftheria Zeggini is a director of the institute of translational genomics in Helmholtz Zentrum München and a professor at the Technical University of Munich (TUM). Previously she served as a research group leader at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute from 2008 to 2018 and an honorary professor in the department of health sciences at the University of Leicester in the UK.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Polygenic score</span> Numerical score aimed at predicting a trait based on variation in multiple genetic loci

In genetics, a polygenic score (PGS), also called a polygenic index (PGI), polygenic risk score (PRS), genetic risk score, or genome-wide score, is a number that summarizes the estimated effect of many genetic variants on an individual's phenotype, typically calculated as a weighted sum of trait-associated alleles. It reflects an individual's estimated genetic predisposition for a given trait and can be used as a predictor for that trait. In other words, it gives an estimate of how likely an individual is to have a given trait only based on genetics, without taking environmental factors into account. Polygenic scores are widely used in animal breeding and plant breeding due to their efficacy in improving livestock breeding and crops. In humans, polygenic scores are typically generated from genome-wide association study (GWAS) data.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jonathan Marchini</span>

Jonathan Laurence Marchini is a Bayesian statistician and professor of statistical genomics in the Department of Statistics at the University of Oxford, a tutorial fellow in statistics at Somerville College, Oxford and a co-founder and director of Gensci Ltd. He co-leads the Haplotype Reference Consortium.

In genetics and genetic epidemiology, a phenome-wide association study, abbreviated PheWAS, is a study design in which the association between single-nucleotide polymorphisms or other types of DNA variants is tested across a large number of different phenotypes. The aim of PheWAS studies is to examine the causal linkage between known sequence differences and any type of trait, including molecular, biochemical, cellular, and especially clinical diagnoses and outcomes. It is a complementary approach to the genome-wide association study, or GWAS, methodology. A fundamental difference between GWAS and PheWAS designs is the direction of inference: in a PheWAS it is from exposure to many possible outcomes, that is, from SNPs to differences in phenotypes and disease risk. In a GWAS, the polarity of analysis is from one or a few phenotypes to many possible DNA variants. The approach has proven useful in rediscovering previously reported genotype-phenotype associations, as well as in identifying new ones.

In statistical genetics, linkage disequilibrium score regression is a technique that aims to quantify the separate contributions of polygenic effects and various confounding factors, such as population stratification, based on summary statistics from genome-wide association studies (GWASs). The approach involves using regression analysis to examine the relationship between linkage disequilibrium scores and the test statistics of the single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) from the GWAS. Here, the "linkage disequilibrium score" for a SNP "is the sum of LD r2 measured with all other SNPs".

Heather Clare Whalley is a Scottish scientist. She is a senior research fellow in Neuroimaging at the Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences, University of Edinburgh., and is an affiliate member of the Centre for Genomic and Experimental Medicine at the University of Edinburgh. Her main focus of research is on the mechanisms underlying the development of major psychiatric disorders using the latest genomic and neuroimaging approaches.

Andrew M. McIntosh is a UK academic psychiatrist. He is Professor of Biological Psychiatry at the Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences, University of Edinburgh, and is an affiliate member of the Centre for Genomic and Experimental Medicine at the University of Edinburgh. The main focus of his research is using genomic and neuroimaging approaches to better understand the causes and causal consequences of Major Depressive Disorder.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium</span> British genomics research consortium

The COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium (COG-UK) was a group of public health agencies and academic institutions in the United Kingdom created in April 2020 to collect, sequence and analyse genomes of SARS-CoV-2 as part of COVID-19 pandemic response. The consortium comprised the UK's four public health agencies, National Health Service organisations, academic partners and the Wellcome Sanger Institute. The consortium was known for first identifying the SARS-CoV-2 Alpha variant in November 2020. As of January 2021, 45% of all SARS-CoV-2 sequences uploaded to the GISAID sequencing database originated from COG-UK.

Deepti Gurdasani is a British-Indian clinical epidemiologist and statistical geneticist who is a senior lecturer in machine learning at the Queen Mary University of London. Her research considers the genetic diversity of African Populations. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Gurdasani has provided the public with her analysis of the evolving situation mainly on the Twitter platform.

Professor Patrick Francis Chinnery, FRCP, FRCPath, FMedSci, is a neurologist, clinician scientist, and Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow based in the Medical Research Council Mitochondrial Biology Unit and the University of Cambridge, where he is also Professor of Neurology and Head of the Department of Clinical Neurosciences.

Serena Nik-Zainal is a British-Malaysian clinician who is a consultant in clinical genetics and Cancer Research UK advanced clinician scientist at the University of Cambridge. She makes use of genomics for clinical applications. She was awarded the Crick Lecture by the Royal Society in 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tara Matise</span> American geneticist

Tara Matise is an American geneticist at Rutgers University. Since 2018, she has served as chair of the Department of Genetics. Her research interests span computational genetics, data science, and human genetics. She is co-director of the Rutgers University Genetics Coordinating Center.

Stacey Ann Missmer is an American reproductive biologist who is a professor at Michigan State University. She was the first faculty member to be appointed under the Michigan State University Global Health Initiative. Her research considers physical and environmental risk factors for endometriosis and infertility.

References

  1. 1 2 "Krina Zondervan | Fellow by Special Election". St Edmund Hall. Retrieved 26 October 2021.
  2. 1 2 3 Miller, Laura M.; Johnson, Neil P. (5 January 2017). "EPHect – the Endometriosis Phenome (and Biobanking) Harmonisation Project – may be very helpful for clinicians and the women they are treating". F1000Research. 6: 14. doi: 10.12688/f1000research.9850.1 . ISSN   2046-1402. PMC   5428485 . PMID   28529694.
  3. 1 2 "Krina Zondervan — Diversity Projects". parking.haiku.fry-it.com. Retrieved 26 October 2021.
  4. Zondervan, Krina T.; Becker, Christian M.; Koga, Kaori; Missmer, Stacey A.; Taylor, Robert N.; Viganò, Paola (19 July 2018). "Endometriosis". Nature Reviews Disease Primers. 4 (1): 9. doi:10.1038/s41572-018-0008-5. ISSN   2056-676X. PMID   30026507. S2CID   231984726.
  5. "A New Drug Target for Endometriosis Treatment?". Drug Discovery from Technology Networks. Retrieved 26 October 2021.
  6. Gibson, Poppy Atkinson (6 September 2021). "Oxford Researchers identify potential break through in endometriosis treatment". The Oxford Student. Retrieved 26 October 2021.
  7. Zondervan, Krina; Tapmeier, Thomas; Jones, Victoria (11 September 2021). "Endometriosis: Gene identified which could be potential treatment target". WalesOnline. Retrieved 26 October 2021.
  8. "Endometriosis: How new treatment 'changed my life'". BBC News. 9 March 2021. Retrieved 26 October 2021.
  9. "Krina Zondervan". World Endometriosis Society. Retrieved 26 October 2021.
  10. "Krina Zondervan". The Conversation. 2 September 2021. Retrieved 26 October 2021.