Devin M. Absher, Ph.D.
Investigator

Dr. Absher has been involved in human genetics from a variety of perspectives. He earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology at Emory University where he worked with Stephen Warren on Fragile X syndrome, a common form of mental retardation. As a postdoctoral fellow, he continued his focus on Mendelian diseases by working on Huntington disease with Richard Myers at Stanford University. Absher then moved to the Stanford Human Genome Center where he began work on complex genetics, including genome-wide association studies of bipolar disorder and cardiovascular disease, as well as population genetics studies involving human populations from around the world. At HudsonAlpha, Absher is working on complex genetic diseases and traits. He incorporates the study of epigenetic influences on disease development by looking at genome-wide methylation patterns in disease populations. He also is continuing his work on population genetics and the emerging field of copy number variation.

Research interests

• Complex disease genetics
• Genetic determinants of normal human traits
• Worldwide population genetics
• Epigenetic modifiers and their influence on human diseases

Selected publications
LaMorte, V.J., Thorburn, J., Absher, D., Spiegel, A., Brown, J.H., Chien, K.R., Feramisco, J.R., Knowlton, K.U. (1994). Gq- and ras-dependent pathways mediate hypertrophy of neonatal rat ventricular myocytes following alpha-1-adrenergic stimulation. J. Biol. Chem. 269: 13490-13496.

Feng, Y., Absher, D., Eberhart, D.E., Brown, V., Malter, H.E., Warren, S.T. (1997). FMRP associates with polyribosomes as an mRNP, and the I304N mutation of severe fragile X syndrome abolishes this association. Mol. Cell 1: 109-118.

*Li, J. Z., *Absher, D. M., Tang, H. Southwick, A. M., Casto, A. M., Ramachandran, S., Cann, H. M., Barsh, G. S., Feldman, M., Cavalli-Sforza, L. L. and Myers, R. M. (2008). Genome-wide characterization of genetic diversity in human populations. Science. 319: 1100-1104. (*co-first authors).