Arun Durvasula

Strober Lab The Strober lab is a computational group at Boston Children's Hospital (a Harvard Medical School affiliated hospital) focused on developing statistical and machine learning tools applied to human gene...

Exciting updates!!
(1) I just opened my lab at Boston Children’s Hospital (Harvard-affiliated)
(2) I’m hiring a postdoc focused on integrating GWAS and functional genomic data. Reach out if you’re interested or connect at ASHG next week!
(3) Learn more at stroberlab.com

Population Biology Modeling & Theory (PBMT) is a peer-reviewed journal reporting advances in modeling and theory within population biology. Its scope spans demography, ecology, epidemiology, evolutionary biology, population genetics, and phylogenetics. PBMT will be online soon.

The Length of Haplotype Blocks and Signals of Structural Variation in Reconstructed Genealogies Abstract. Recent breakthroughs have enabled the accurate inference of large-scale genealogies. Through modelling the impact of recombination on the correla

Delighted that our paper about the distribution of genomic spans of clades/edges in genealogies (ARGs), and using this for detecting inversions and other SVs (and other phenomena that cause local disruption of recombination) is out in MBE academic.oup.com/mbe/article/... (1/n)

Would be excited to chat with folks looking for a postdoc in AI to develop models for genomic prediction...

A great opportunity for funding coming up soon is the Schmidt AI in Science fellowship, due October 13th! apply.interfolio.com/173322

Home The SCalE Meeting is a free, one day regional academic meeting focused on evolutionary genetics and genomics. This year's SCalE Meeting is hosted by UCLA, sponsored by the Institute for Quantitative ...

In the midst of the darkness, I am pleased to announce that UCLA will be hosting the upcoming Southern California Evolutionary Genetics (SCalE) conference on November 1! Registration & abstract submission is here: www.scalemeeting.org/home Deadline is October 13! Hope to see you at UCLA!

📣Online now from @arundurvasula.bsky.social & co!
📄Pathway-specific polygenic scores substantially increase the discovery of gene-adiposity interactions impacting liver biomarkers
👉https://bit.ly/47HmkYW

Pathway-specific polygenic scores substantially increase the discovery of gene-adiposity interactions impacting liver biomarkers The authors describe a strategy for using pathway-specific polygenic scores to increase the detection and interpretability of gene-environment interactions, with an applied analysis uncovering genetic...

Our work on leveraging pathway-specific polygenic scores to discover gene-environment interactions is now online at HGG Advances (@hggadvances.bsky.social). 10/10 great review process!

www.cell.com/hgg-advances...
cc @kewesterman.bsky.social

Exposure accumulation drives age-dependent disease architectures and polygenic risk scores Our understanding of the dependence of the genetic and environmental architecture of common diseases on age is incomplete. Here, we use longitudinal data to quantify age-dependent genetic and environm...

Excited to share our latest manuscript, "Exposure accumulation drives age-dependent disease architectures and polygenic risk scores," led by Xilin Jiang: www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

I am attempting an explainer thread for the first time here:
(I am usually too exhausted to post one)

We regret to inform you we have returned to social media. Sorry.

Pathway-specific polygenic scores substantially increase the discovery of gene-adiposity interactions impacting liver biomarkers The authors describe a strategy for using pathway-specific polygenic scores to increase the detection and interpretability of gene-environment interactions, with an applied analysis uncovering genetic...

Our work on leveraging pathway-specific polygenic scores to discover gene-environment interactions is now online at HGG Advances (@hggadvances.bsky.social). 10/10 great review process!

www.cell.com/hgg-advances...
cc @kewesterman.bsky.social

First author @xilinjiang.bsky.social is now on Bluesky!

Homepage - Population, Evolutionary, and Quantitative Genetics Conference Visit our website to learn more.

Save the date! #PEQG26 June 9-12 2026 in Asilomar, CA. Happens only every 2yrs, but is my favorite conference. Full website coming soon, and registration and abstract submission opens November 14, but I'm allowed to tease that keynotes will be @jnovembre.bsky.social @jennytung.bsky.social and me!

📣Just out: Exposure accumulation drives age-dependent disease architectures and polygenic risk scores www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

Very cool results: Accumulating E with age reduces heritability & PGS effects

Led by Xilin Jiang (Wellcome ECR joint w/Alkes Price) + @arundurvasula.bsky.social

Exposure accumulation drives age-dependent disease architectures and polygenic risk scores Our understanding of the dependence of the genetic and environmental architecture of common diseases on age is incomplete. Here, we use longitudinal data to quantify age-dependent genetic and environm...

There's a lot more that would take quite a bit more space to explain, so please check out the manuscript: www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

The Supplementary Note also has some good stuff! Thanks to our coauthors as well: Alkes Price, John Danesh, Gil McVean, @mikeinouye.bsky.social, and Sarah Urbut!

This model is able to explain 85% of the variation in PRS across age (of which there is a lot! See Figure 5).

In our new manuscript, we show that age-dependent architectures for complex traits and predicted disease liability are driven by the accumulation of variance from environmental exposures and an age-dependent liability threshold model (liability-threshold+EA model).

Xilin observed decreasing PRS accuracy with age across many diseases (see figure) and we wondered if GxE played a role.

Distinct explanations underlie gene-environment interactions in the UK Biobank The role of gene-environment (GxE) interaction in disease and complex trait architectures is widely hypothesized but currently unknown. Here, we apply three statistical approaches to quantify and dist...

This project started as a follow-up to my paper earlier this year on GxE[1] and on a previous paper led by Xilin that looked at age-dependency of genetic variants on complex disease risk [2]

1. www.cell.com/ajhg/abstrac...
2. journals.plos.org/plosgenetics...

Exposure accumulation drives age-dependent disease architectures and polygenic risk scores Our understanding of the dependence of the genetic and environmental architecture of common diseases on age is incomplete. Here, we use longitudinal data to quantify age-dependent genetic and environm...

Excited to share our latest manuscript, "Exposure accumulation drives age-dependent disease architectures and polygenic risk scores," led by Xilin Jiang: www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

I am attempting an explainer thread for the first time here:
(I am usually too exhausted to post one)

Public Science Call for Papers Special Issue of The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social ScienceThe Public's Science–A New Social Contract for American Research Policy

Call for Papers! 🧵

The Public's Science–A New Social Contract for American Research Policy a Special Issue of The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science

Editors: Alondra Nelson (IAS) and Jenny Reardon (UC, Santa Cruz)

Abstract Deadline: Sept 19

www.ias.edu/stsv-lab/pub...

STEPS To It Announcing a new program, called STEPS, to simulate the dynamics of evolving microbial populations.

Excited to share new #program, STEPS, which can simulate #dynamics of the E. coli Long-Term Evolution Experiment (#LTEE) or other microbes in serial transfer regime.

telliamedrevisited.wordpress.com/2025/08/12/s...

STEPS developed by @devinmlake.bsky.social, Zachary Matson, Minako Izutsu, and me.

Our paper showing that variation in transcription factor binding sites underlies the majority of additive genetic variance for phenotypic variation in maize is finally out!

Sadly they didn't use our suggested cover image below (made by the inimitable Andi Kur).

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Bittersweet to be leaving @docedge.bsky.social after a wonderful postdoc, but excited to share that I'm joining @uoregon.bsky.social next month as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Data Science.

How your genes interact with your environment changes your disease risk − new research counts the ways Environmental factors such as lifestyle and the medications you take influence the effects your genes have on your body − and can clarify how diseases develop.

Arun Durvasula, PhD, of @uscpphs.bsky.social writes, "Lifestyle factors play a large role in determining who gets a disease and who doesn’t. But they are far from the entire story."

A fascinating read about the relationship between genetics and our environment. ⬇️ 🔗

#Science #MedSky #ResearchSky

The evolution of sex-specific gene expression in polygenic traits Abstract. Selection often favours different phenotypes in males and females, driving the evolution of sex-specific genetic architectures that facilitate se

The evolution of sex-specific gene expression in polygenic traits

@ewanflintham.bsky.social

doi.org/10.1093/jeb/...

Multiple-testing corrections in case-control studies using identity-by-descent segments https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.03.663057v1

Team of Hawaii students collaborates with scientists to draft endangered Palila bird genome The palila once existed throughout the entire island chain. Now the species can only be found on a small region of Mauna Kea

Some nice press coverage of our efforts to assemble the genome of the critically endangered palila with Hawaiian high school students and teachers:
www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2025/07/01/t...

Addressing missing context in regulatory variation across primate evolution In primates, loci associated with adaptive trait variation often fall in noncoding regions. Understanding the mechanisms linking these regulatory vari…

Check out our new review about addressing missing context in regulatory variation across primate evolution 🧬🐒 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Happy to see this out! @reginafairbanks.bsky.social analysis of perhaps the most famous maize domestication locus, teosinte glume architecture 1, which controls much of the change from the enclosed fruitcase (top) in teosinte to the "naked" grains of maize (bottom) www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... 1/2

Very happy to have been part of this project. Go check this dive on SMC-based models!