HIRSCHHORN LAB
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Boston Children's Hospital · Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard · Harvard Medical School
PEOPLE
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Joel Hirschhorn
M.D., Ph.D.
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Principal Investigator
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Joel is the chief of the Division of Endocrinology at Boston Children's Hospital and is the Concordia Professor of Pediatrics and Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School.
Angeliki Angelidi
M.D., Ph.D.
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Postdoctoral Fellow
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Angeliki joined the lab as a postdoctoral fellow in 2021 and has a great interest in Diabetes, Obesity, and Metabolism. She is currently working on genomic and metabolomic data to combine genetics and metabolomics for the identification of metabolites as potential correlates, predictors, or ideally causal mediators of obesity, diabetes, and glycemic traits.
John Baronas​
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Lab Manager & Research Assistant
John joined the lab in 2019 as a research assistant and works primarily with Dr. Renthal to investigate the genetics of chondrocyte biology and pediatric skeletal growth.
Mali DiMeo
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Research Assistant
Mali joined the lab in the spring of 2023 and works with Dr. Jia Zhu to investigate the genetics and pathophysiology of PCOS and other reproductive endocrine disorders using computational genetic methods. She has a Master's degree in Bioinformatics and a Bachelor's degree in Molecular Biology.
Anders Eliasen
M.Sc., Ph.D.
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Postdoctoral Fellow​
Anders joined the lab in 2022 as a postdoctoral fellow. He is interested in computational methods for genome-wide association studies and is currently working with genetic data to examine how a genetic predisposition for obesity influence childhood traits predating the onset of obesity.
Wen He​
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Postdoctoral Fellow
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Wen joined the lab as a postdoc research fellow in 2023. Wen's research interest is in understanding the neuroendocrine regulation of reproductive function and related reproductive endocrine disorders through computational genetic methods. Wen is currently focusing on identifying both common and rare genetic associations with diseased populations using large biobank genetic data.
Yisong Huang
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Biostatistician
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Yisong Huang is a Biostatistician at Boston Children’s Hospital, where she applies computational methods and data analysis to support medical research. Her current work focus on GWAS, metabolomics, and diabetes, with a strong interest in understanding the genetic basis of cardiometabolic health in youth.
Varun Lingadal​
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Research Assistant
Varun joined the lab in the summer of 2023 as a Research Assistant. He is currently working with Dr. Zhu to investigate the genetics of PCOS and with Dr. Lopez to study the effects of certain pharmacological agents on neuronal activity. Varun graduated from Dartmouth College with a Bachelor of Arts in Biology modified with Mathematics.
Iris Pang
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Undergraduate Student
Iris Pang is an undergraduate student at MIT, majoring in Molecular Biology and Computer Science. She is working with Dr. Hirschhorn, Angeliki, and Yisong on combining genetics and metabolomics for the identification of metabolites as potential predictors or correlates for cardiometabolic conditions.
Genesis Perez-Melara
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Undergraduate Student
Genesis Joined the lab as a research assistant in the summer of 2024. She is working with Dr. Zhu on the genetic risk factors for PCOS and their impact on perinatal outcomes using computational genetic methods. Genesis graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 2019 and is currently a 4th year medical student at HMS.
Aishwarya Seth
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Research Assistant
Aishwarya has a Master’s in Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins, with a background in computer science, and joined the Hirschhorn Lab in 2023. She has built machine learning based predictive models to predict the risk of diseases using imaging and clinical data. She works towards identifying genetic predisposing factors that impact disease risk and anthropometric traits.
Christina M. Astley
M.D., Sc.D.​
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Assistant Professor
Christina is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and physician-scientist in the Divisions of Endocrinology and Computational Epidemiology at Boston Children's Hospital. Her research focuses on the development of innovative methods to understand individual- and population-level disease dynamics (e.g multiple omics, global digital health data streams).
AFFILIATES
Mary Frances Lopez
Ph.D.
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Assistant Professor
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Mary Frances is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the Harvard Medical School and Staff Research Scientist in the Division of Endocrinology at the Boston Children's. Hospital. Her research interests center around the hormonal influences on neonatal growth, nutrition, and metabolism. Her research has studied the effects of insulin-like growth factor 2 on growth and metabolism, and more recently has focused on mechanisms by which neuronal circuits regulate body weight and contribute to obesity.
Nora Renthal
M.D., Ph.D.
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Assistant Professor
Nora is a pediatric endocrinologist and basic science investigator interested in the genetics of pediatric skeletal growth. She joined the Hirschhorn Lab as an instructor in 2019 after endocrine fellowship at Boston Children's Hospital. She received her MD and PhD from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. [Nora Renthal Research Group}
Jia Zhu
M.D.
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Assistant Professor
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Jia is a pediatric endocrinologist and computational genetics investigator. Her research interests are in understanding the biological pathways and mechanisms underlying the pathophysiology of common reproductive endocrine disorders through computational genetic methods, with a focus on pediatric antecedents to adult disorders.