Dr. rer. nat. Daniel Andergassen
DZHK Junior Research Group
Elucidating the contribution of sex chromosomes to the CVD gender bias
Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology
Academic Career and Research Areas
Dr. Andergassen’s research bridges computational and experimental sciences to understand the impact of the non-coding genome on cardiovascular disease (CVD). Furthermore, his team aims to elucidate the contribution of sex chromosomes to sex differences in CVD. Particular attention is given to those genes that escape female X chromosome inactivation, resulting in a higher gene dose in females (XX) compared to males (XY). To systematically elucidate the molecular mechanism for the CVD sex bias, the Andergassen lab quantitatively assesses the impact of sex chromosomes and hormones using sequencing approaches combined with disease and genetic models. Dr. Andergassen aims to reveal relevant therapeutic candidates and new regulatory disease mechanisms that may form the foundation of new sex-specific therapies to treat CVD.
Dr. Andergassen received his Diploma degree in Molecular Biology from the University of Vienna in 2012. He then completed his Ph.D. under the supervision of Denise Barlow, a driving force of epigenetics. In her lab at the Center for Molecular Medicine (CeMM), he generated the most comprehensive map of allele-specific expression in the mouse, including the identification of all the imprinted genes. To accomplish this, he developed a bioinformatics pipeline to detect allele-specific expression from high-throughput sequencing data. To learn more about epigenetic regulation, he joined the lab of John Rinn and Alexander Meissner as a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard (HSCI), where he focused his research on X-linked lncRNAs with sex-specific features. In another project, he targeted epigenetic key pathways in vivo, allowing him to uncover the imprinting mechanism genomewide. Since September 2020, he has led an independent junior research group at the Technical University of Munich at the Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology, aiming to understand the impact of the non-coding genome on heart function and elucidate the contribution of sex chromosomes to sex bias in CVD.
Awards
- European Talent Academy fellowship (2023)
- DZHK Junior Research Group leader (2022)
- EMBO Short-Term Fellowship (2013)
Key Publications (all publications)
Andergassen D*, Rinn JL*.: "From genotype to phenotype: genetics of mammalian long non-coding RNAs in vivo". Nat. Rev. Genet. 2021
AbstractAndergassen D*, Smith ZD*, Kretzmer H, Rinn JL, Meissner A.: "Diverse epigenetic mechanisms maintain parental imprints within the embryonic and extraembryonic lineages". Dev. Cell 2021
AbstractAndergassen D, Smith ZD, Lewandowski JP, Gerhardinger C, Meissner A*, Rinn JL*.: "In vivo Firre and Dxz4 deletion elucidates roles for autosomal gene regulation". eLife 2019
AbstractAndergassen D, Dotter CP, Wenzel D, Sigl V, Bammer PC, Muckenhuber M, Mayer D, Kulinski TM, Theussl HC, Penninger JM, Bock C, Barlow DP*, Pauler FM*, Hudson QJ*.: "Mapping the mouse Allelome reveals tissue-specific regulation of allelic expression". eLife 2017
AbstractAndergassen D*, Dotter CP*, Kulinski TM, Guenzl PM, Bammer PC, Barlow DP*, Pauler FM*, Hudson QJ*.: "Allelome.PRO, a pipeline to define allele-specific genomic features from high-throughput sequencing data". Nucleic Acids Research 2015
Abstract