Application Programmer/Analyst Lead
Ryan Welch, PhD
Ryan uses genetic and molecular data to better understand complex human traits and improve clinical decision-making.
Research
Ryan’s research spans statistical genetics, bioinformatics, computational genomics, and pharmacogenomics. He uses genetic and molecular data to better understand complex human traits and improve clinical decision-making. His previous work includes large-scale genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and meta-analysis, rare-variant association testing, and the integration of eQTL, transcriptomic, epigenomic, and other functional genomic data. He has used these approaches to study the molecular basis of diseases such as type 2 diabetes and related cardiometabolic traits.
Research software
Ryan has a longstanding interest in scalable, reproducible computational methods and research software for analyzing and visualizing genomic data. His work includes developing LocusZoom, a widely used tool for regional visualization of genome-wide association results.
Current work
Ryan’s current research focuses on pharmacogenomics in the COMPASS mental health study. The team is conducting an initial feasibility study to determine how many participants carry known pharmacogenetic variants that alter the activity of drug-metabolizing enzymes (PGx phenotypes) and are also exposed to medications affected by those enzymes.
A longer-term goal is to combine PGx phenotypes with broader genetic, clinical, and behavioral data to build models that predict treatment outcomes. These models could ultimately help personalize mental health treatment.