Explore the spectrum of our research in topics including age-related macular degeneration, Alzheimer disease, substance abuse, sickle cell disease, membranous nephropathy, mental illness, longevity, cancer genetics, epigenetics and developmental genetics.
For biomedical researchers both on campus and off, our program’s Molecular Genetics Core Lab provides services for DNA and RNA extraction, sequencing, genotyping and cell line cultures.
Boston University researchers led by Dr. Lindsay Farrer, PhD, and Xiaoling Zhang, MD, PhD, have developed a new genetic test that does a much better job predicting Alzheimer's risk across people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds - a major upgrade over earlier tools, which were built almost entirely using data from people of European […]
Dr. Lindsay A. Farrer, PhD, chief of Biomedical Genetics at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, has been selected to receive a 3-year, $450,000 Zenith Fellows Award from the Alzheimer's Association — one of the most prestigious honors in Alzheimer's research worldwide. Dr. Farrer has served as principal investigator for large-scale genetic epidemiological […]
BU Biomedical Genetics researchers Dr. Lindsay A. Farrer, along with Congcong Zhu, John J. Farrell, Donghe Li, Richard M. Sherva, and others contributed to a major international consensus meta-analysis published in Nature Genetics. The study looked at data from three leading Alzheimer’s genetics consortia: the European Alzheimer & Dementia Biobank (EADB), the European Alzheimer’s Disease […]
A large multi-ancestry genome-wide study co-authored by BU Biomedical Genetics faculty has identified specific genes that may help explain why cigarette smoking is associated with increased risk for Alzheimer's disease (AD). This study was published in Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association (November 2025) and was conducted by BU Biomedical Genetics contributors Dr. Gyungah R. Jun, Dr. […]
The largest gene-expression study in African Americans with Alzheimer's disease reveals overexpression of a gene also implicated in those with white European ancestry. Researchers from Boston University Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine, Massachusetts, looked at RNA sequencing data from post-mortem brain tissue from 207 donors: 125 confirmed Alzheimer's disease cases and 82 controls. ADAMTS2 was the gene with the […]
(Boston)—The prevalence of Alzheimer disease (AD) is approximately two times higher in African Americans (AA) compared to White/European-ancestry (EA) individuals living in the U.S. Some of this is due to social determinants of health such as disparities in health care access and quality of education, biases in testing and higher rates of AD risk factors […]
The second in a three-part series from Medscape Medical News on the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on drug discovery and development. Part 1 is about AI's role in designing speedier, more effective clinical trials. Part 3 reports on AI's ability to create new proteins from scratch, streamlining the creation of protein-based therapeutics. Scientists the world over are racing […]
A new study funded by a grant of more than $13 million from the US National Institutes of Health will look into possible genetic reasons why Sephardic Jews are diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease at younger ages than other people. The project officially launched on May 5 as representatives of partner institutions met at Beilinson Hospital […]