Serena Sanna
Head of Research
Area of interest:
My research and that of my team has a particular focus on addressing women’s health from the genetic and microbiome perspectives. Further understanding of such mechanisms is the route toward the future development of a personalized medicine.
My research studies have for long focused on studying the genetics of quantitative traits and complex disease by applying and implementing computation models. Mathematics is my background and I use this knowledge to address biological questions by exploring large data sets. Specifically, by coupling cutting-edge technologies and methods with a special population, the Sardinians, I have identified key molecular mechanisms underlying hundreds of complex traits. During my work period in the Netherlands, I have explored the extended phenotype and molecular characterization of the Lifelines cohort and contributed to the better understanding of the complexity of diseases by incorporating non-genetic components from –omics experiments (microbiome, proteome, metabolome). In particular, thanks to the Lifelines cohort I have identified molecular and bacterial signatures of complex diseases (including diabetes, cardiovascular diseases) and of physiological variations. Furthermore, I identified sources of variability in symptoms and expressivity of Mendelian diseases. I am now taking my expertise in both genetics and omics data to deeply study biological mechanisms of sex dimorphism – different incidence and presentation of diseases between men and women. In this perspective, I have designed an unique cohort to study women’s health, the Women4Health cohort, which now has expanded to three collaborative centers: IRCCS Burlo Garofolo Trieste, AOU Cagliari, and IRCCS AOU Sant’Orsola Bologna.
Most significant publications:
2022
Effect of host genetics on the gut microbiome in 7,738 participants of the Đutch Microbiome Project Journal Article
In: Nat Genet, 54 (2), pp. 143–151, 2022.
Challenges and future directions for studying effects of host genetics on the gut microbiome Journal Article
In: Nat Genet, 54 (2), pp. 100–106, 2022, ([DOI:hrefhttps://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41588-021-00983-z10.1038/s41588-021-00983-z] [PubMed:hrefhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3278393532783935]).
2020
Mendelian randomization while jointly modeling cis genetics identifies causal relationships between gene expression and lipids Journal Article
In: Nat Commun, 11 (1), pp. 4930, 2020, ([PubMed Central:hrefhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7530717PMC7530717] [DOI:hrefhttps://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-18716-x10.1038/s41467-020-18716-x] [PubMed:hrefhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2346866323468663]).
2019
Causal relationships among the gut microbiome, short-chain fatty acids and metabolic diseases Journal Article
In: Nature Genetics, 51 (4), pp. 600–605, 2019.
2015
Genome-wide association analyses based on whole-genome sequencing in Sardinia provide insights into regulation of hemoglobin levels Journal Article
In: Nature Genetics, 47 (11), pp. 1264–1271, 2015.
Genome sequencing elucidates Sardinian genetic architecture and augments association analyses for lipid and blood inflammatory markers Journal Article
In: Nature Genetics, 47 (11), pp. 1272–1281, 2015.
2014
Rare variant genotype imputation with thousands of study-specific whole-genome sequences: implications for cost-effective study designs Journal Article
In: European Journal of Human Genetics, 23 (7), pp. 975–983, 2014.
2011
Fine Mapping of Five Loci Associated with Low-Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol Detects Variants That Double the Explained Heritability Journal Article
In: PLoS Genetics, 7 (7), pp. e1002198, 2011.

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