Dr. Asgari Chosen as 2022 Sinsheimer Scholar

Congratulations to Dr. Samira Asgari, who has been chosen as a 2022 Sinsheimer Scholar Award recipient and awarded a $150,000 two-year grant.

Funded by the Sinsheimer Scholar Award, Dr. Asgari proposes to lead the largest human genomics study on bacterial sepsis.

Bacterial sepsis is a leading cause of death and disability worldwide, accounting for 11 million deaths per year. Theroretically, most sepsis deaths are preventable through timely and appropriate clinical management. However, non-specific disease symptoms make it difficult to separate sepsis from less severe infections in time in most cases. Similar to other infectious diseases, susceptibility to sepsis is in part driven by human genetic factors. In fact, previous human genetic studies of bacterial sepsis have identified several rare genetic variants in key immune genes that can cause sepsis. On the other hand, our understanding of common genetic variants that can contribute to sepsis risk is limited. Larger, better-powered human genetics studies are required to identify such variants.

Dr. Asgari aims to use the results of her human genomics study on bacterial sepsis to develop a genetic risk score for sepsis in order to stratify low-risk from high-risk individuals prior to symptom development and to use functional genomics data and experimental follow up to connect genetic risk variants to their cellular function. Achieving these aims will improve understanding of sepsis biology and immunity and can help reduce the disease burden by paving the way for the development of better preventive, diagnostic and therapeutic measures for bacterial sepsis.