An international team of scientists committed to reducing the burden of common disease and increasing equity in genomic medicine across ancestries

The Allelica team is dedicated to advancing common disease risk prediction across health systems in the US and around the world.

Advisory Board

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Robert Green MD MPH

Professor of Medicine (Genetics) at Harvard Medical School, Director of the G2P Research Program at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Broad Institute and Ariadne Labs

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Biography

Robert C. Green, MD, MPH is Professor of Medicine (Genetics) at Harvard Medical School and a physician-scientist who directs the G2P Research Program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Broad Institute and Ariadne Labs. Dr. Green is internationally recognized for research and policy efforts accelerating the implementation of genomic/precision medicine.

Dr. Green is board certified in both neurology and medical genetics. He is a Board Member of the Council for Responsible Genetics and works within the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health and the All of Us Research Program on designing efforts to return research information, particularly genomic information, to research participants.

Dr. Green led the first experimental trials disclosing common complex disease risk (REVEAL Study) and the first prospective studies of direct-to-consumer genetic testing services (PGen Study). He currently leads and co-leads the first NIH funded randomized trials of sequencing in adults, newborns, and active duty US military personnel.

Dr. Green created the concept of aggregate penetrance of genomic variants in prospective population cohorts.His research is focused on demonstrating the feasibility of genomic sequencing in healthy newborns, paving the way for humans to gain lifelong medical benefits from genomics.

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Aleksandar Rajkovic MD PhD

Chief Genomics Officer, UCSF Health Center for Clinical Genetics and Genomics

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Biography

Dr. Rajkovic is the UCSF Chief Genomics Officer, Professor of Pathology,tand the Medical Director and Chief of the Center for Genetic and Genomic Medicine in the UCSF Health System.

Prior to his position at UCSF,he was the Chief of Medical and Laboratory Genetics at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center where he oversaw Pittsburgh molecular genomic laboratories as well as adult/cancer clinical services.

Dr. Rajkovic is also the Director of the Genomic Medicine Initiative, a translational arm of the Institute of Human Genetics.

He has served as a member and director on numerous NIH study sections and workshops, March of Dimes advisory committee on prematurity and American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology Committee on Genetics.

His research investigates the use of genetics data for large scale implementation and the genetic underpinnings of the formation and differentiation of gametes and reproductive tract, their role of these genes in human disease, embryo lethality and origin of heritable human disorders.

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Gordon S. Huggins MD

Director, Molecular Cardiology Research Institute, Tufts University School of Medicine

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Biography

Dr. Huggins is the Director of the Molecular Cardiology Research Institute (MCRI) Center for Translational Pharmacology and Genomics, Associate Professor at Tufts University School of Medicine,and a practicing cardiologist. He led the NHLBI Heart Failure Network program at Tufts and co-directed the Committee onParticipation of Women in Heart Failure Clinical Trials.

Previously, Dr. Huggins spent four years at The Massachusetts General Hospital in theCardiology Division where he completed his clinical training.

In addition to his work in Tufts Medical Center,he is also a faculty member at Tufts Graduate School ofBiomedical Sciences Clinical Translational Sciences Program,Genetics Program and Cell, Molecular and Developmental Biology Program.

His research interest is focused on making scientific discoveries relevant to human diseases that may translate to new biomarkers or therapies.

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Bjarni Jóhann Vilhjálmsson PhD

Professor at Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University

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Biography

Dr. Vilhjálmsson is a Professor at the National Centre for Register-based Research and at the Bioinformatics Research Centre at Aarhus University. Vilhjalmsson is a statistical geneticist who is motivated to leverage large population-scale data to understand the interplay between genetic and environmental factors when determining the causes of disease. He currently leads a research group at Aarhus University that is focused on developing methods that integrate electronic health records and large genetic data to understand psychiatric disorders and other diseases.

He is the author of LDpred, one of the most cited methods and software for deriving Polygenic risk Scores (PRS). LDpred contributed significantly to the development of the entire PRS field, having been used in a number of PRS seminal papers that have highlighted the value of PRSs in clinical settings.

Dr. Vilhjálmsson completed his PhD in Computational Biology from the University of Southern California in 2011, and went on to do postdoctoral research at Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard University, and later at the Bioinformatics Research Centre (BiRC) of Aarhus University. In 2016 Dr. Vilhjalmsson left academia to work as a software product owner at QIAGEN, but rejoined academia at Aarhus University to establish his own research group. Dr. Vilhjalmsson was awarded the prestigious Lundbeck Fellow grant in 2020.

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The Leadership Team

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Giordano Bottà PhD CEO & Co-Founder

Giordano is a molecular biologist with a PhD in Public Health. During his career as a researcher he had the opportunity to work with some of the top genomics experts in the world at the University of Oxford publishing in the journal Nature. He wants to give people the opportunity to benefit from the scientific revolution happening in genomics by creating digital products that allow the extraordinary information carried in our DNA to be used effectively.

Field: Molecular Biology & Bioinformatics
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Paolo Di Domenico CTO, Head of Research and Development, Co-Founder

Paolo is a software engineer. He programmed his first software in Basic at the age of 5 with a Commodore 64. Since then he has gained experience in numerous programming languages and in designing complex cloud architecture. His goal is to develop algorithms and software that can translate the latest scientific findings in genomic prediction into clinical practice.

Field: Software Engineering & Data Mining
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Ernst Schaefer MD Chief Medical Officer

Ernst is internationally recognized for his expertise in lipoprotein metabolism and the management of lipoprotein disorders for coronary heart disease prevention. He co-founded Boston Heart Diagnostics and has developed innovative diagnostic tests to improve preventive cardiology. Dr. Schaefer has contributed extensively to the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) and serves on the National Lipid Association’s Board of Directors. With over 500 publications, he also holds distinguished professorships at Tufts University, advancing the field of cardiovascular research.

Field: Cardiovascular Research