Elizabeth

Blue

PhD

biography

Liz Blue (formerly Marchani) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Medical Genetics and faculty in both the Institute for Public Health Genetics and Statistical Genetics Program at the University of Washington (UW). Dr. Blue is the Assistant Director of the Washington  State Twin Registry and a member of the Brotman Baty Institute for Precision Medicine and the International Genetic Epidemiology Society’s Board of Directors. Following her Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Utah and postdoctoral training in statistical genetics at UW, Dr. Blue's lab incorporates population genetics and genetic epidemiology to identify variants influencing disease within and between human populations, predicting and evaluating their functional consequences. Her research is highly collaborative, contributing to national and international consortia including the Alzheimer’s Disease Sequencing Project, the Centers for Mendelian Genomics and GREGoR Consortium, the Cystic Fibrosis Genome Project, the Genome Sequencing Project, and the Undiagnosed Diseases Network.

Education & Training

PhD, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT (2005-2008)

M.S., University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT (2003-2005)

B.S., Indiana University, Bloomington, IN (1999-2003)

Honors

Board of Directors for the International Genetic Epidemiology Society (2022-2025)

Fellow Member of the International Genetic Epidemiology Society (2019)

Certificate of Appreciation, International Genetic Epidemiology Society (2017)

NIH Pathway to Independence Award (2011-2018)

NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award Institutional Research Training Grant (2008-2011)

Indiana University Residential Scholars program (1999)

Research Interests

The Blue Lab incorporates tools from population genetics and genetic epidemiology to detect regions of the genome influencing disease. Our long-term research goals are to identify variants influencing disease within and between human populations, as well as to predict and evaluate their functions. We are interested in the biology differentiating the genetic underpinnings of Mendelian disorders (single gene, high penetrance) from complex traits influenced by many genetic and environmental factors (ex., Alzheimer’s disease, cardiovascular disease), and how genetic modifiers fit within that spectrum.

Publications

Kingston H., Stilp A.M., Gordon W., Broome J., Gogarten S.M., Ling H., Barnard J., Dugan-Perez S., Ellinor P.T., Gabriel S., Germer S., Gibbs R.A., Gupta N., Rice K., Smith A.V., Zody M.C.; Cystic Fibrosis Genome Project; NHLBI Trans-Omics for Precision Medicine (TOPMed) Consortium; Blackman S.M., Cutting G., Knowles M.R., Zhou Y.H., Rosenfeld M., Gibson R.L., Bamshad M., Fohner A., Blue E.E. (2022) Accounting for population structure in genetic studies of cystic fibrosis. HGG Adv, 3, 100117. PMCID: PMC9136666.

Blue E.E., Thornton T.A., Kooperberg C., Liu S., Wactawski-Wende J., Manson J., Kuller L., Hayden K., Reiner A.P. (2021) Non-coding variants in MYH11, FZD3, and SORCS3 are associated with dementia in women. Alzheimer’s & Dementia, , 17(2), 215-225. PMCID: PMC7920533.

Blue E.E., Horimoto A.R.V.R., Mukherjee S., Wijsman E.M., Thornton T.A. (2019) Local ancestry at APOE modifies Alzheimer’s disease risk in Caribbean Hispanics. Alzheimer’s & Dementia 15(12): 1524-1532. PMCID: PMC6925639.

Blue E.E., Louie T.L., Chong J.X., Hebbring S.J., Barnes K.C., Rafaels N.M., Knowles M.R., NHLBI GO Exome Sequencing Project, LungGO, Gibson R.L., Bamshad M.J., Emond M.J. (2018) Variation in Cilia Protein Genes and Progression of Lung Disease in Cystic Fibrosis. Annals of the American Thoracic Society 15(4):440-448. PMCID: PMC5879139.

Marchani E.E., Bird T.D., Steinbart E.J., Rosenthal E., Yu C.E., Schellenberg G.D., Wijsman E.M. (2010) Evidence for three loci modifying age-at-onset of Alzheimer's Disease in early-onset PSEN2 families. American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B 153B(5): 1031-1041. PMCID: PMC3022037.

Marchani E.E., Xing J., Witherspoon D.J., Jorde L.B., Rogers A.R. (2009) Estimating the age of retrotransposon subfamilies using maximum likelihood. Genomics 94(1): 78-82. PMCID: PMC2703446.

Witherspoon D.J., Wooding S., Rogers A.R., Marchani E.E., Watkins W.S., Batzer M.A., Jorde L.B. (2007) Genetic Similarities Within and Between Human Populations. Genetics 176(1): 351-359. PMCID: PMC1893020.