Posted By: Sara Cullinan, PhD, Deputy Editor, AJHG
Each month, the editors of The American Journal of Human Genetics interview an author of a recently published paper. This month we check in with 2018 Curt Stern Award winner Sek Kathiresan (@skathire on Twitter) to discuss his paper ‘Genetic Association of Albuminuria with Cardiometabolic Disease and Blood Pressure’.
AJHG: What prompted you to start working on this project?
Sek: In observational studies, many biomarkers including the concentration of protein spilling into urine (albuminuria) are correlated with health outcomes. We wondered if the association of albuminuria with adverse health outcomes reflected a causal relationship or mere correlation. Knowing this is important to determine if decreasing urinary albumin excretion should per se be a target for therapeutic intervention.
AJHG: What about this paper/project most excites you?
Sek: In addressing the question above, we identified a bi-directional relationship – genetic predisposition to albuminuria leads to higher blood pressure and genetic predisposition to higher blood pressure leads to more albuminuria. We suspect this reflects a feed-forward loop.
AJHG: Thinking about the bigger picture, what implications do you see from this work for the larger human genetics community?
Sek: Mendelian randomization is a useful genetics approach for causal inference. The availability of biomarkers, clinical outcomes, and genetic data in a single large study – UK Biobank – is facilitating systematic Mendelian randomization analyses for a range of biomarkers.
AJHG: What advice do you have for trainees/young scientists?
Sek: Pick an important problem to study – one that not only you care about but also the rest of the world. Figure out the skills and resources you need to address the problem. Then, go out and get the training and resources to attack the problem. Stay focused on the problem and ask yourself, each day, if you are working on the most impactful thing you could be doing.
AJHG: And for fun, tell us something about your life outside of the lab.
Sek: Life outside the lab is consumed by three children – ages 15, 13, 10. Raising them to be happy, loving, and engaged with the world is a joy.
Sekar Kathiresan, MD, is the Director of the Center for Genomic Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Ofer and Shelly Nemirovsky MGH Research Scholar, Director of the Cardiovascular Disease Initiative at the Broad institute, and a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He has been a member of ASHG since 2004.