Senior Researcher
Research Areas
I am interested in understanding how genetic variation affects health and disease with a focus on pregnancy-related outcomes (birthweight and gestational duration) and selected childhood diseases. I often use the genome-wide association study (GWAS) approach, but my projects also include other types of data, such as metabolomics profiles. In terms of childhood diseases, I am particularly interested in 1) the gastrointestinal disorder pyloric stenosis, and 2) febrile seizures.
| Education |
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| 2006 |
PhD in Statistical Genetics. The Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University of Denmark. |
| 2002 |
MSc in Biology and Statistics. University of Copenhagen. |
| 1997 |
BSc in Biology. University of Copenhagen. |
| Employment |
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| 2011– |
Senior Researcher, Dept. of Epidemiology Research, SSI. |
| 2007–2011 |
Research Scientist, Dept. of Epidemiology Research, SSI. |
| 2006–2007 |
Research Scientist, Dept. of Statistics, deCODE genetics, Iceland. |
| 2004–2005 |
Visiting Scientist, Dept. of Biostatistics, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore (4 months). |
2003–2005
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Statistics Instructor. The Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University of Denmark. |
| 2002 |
Visiting Research Assistant, Dept. of Biostatistics, Columbia University, New York (6 months). |
| 1999 – 2001 |
Assistant Editor of Biology, Danish National Encyclopedia. |
| Professional Activities and Leadership Positions |
2016-
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Research Group Leader, Dept. of Epidemiology Research, SSI. |
| 2007- |
Project leadership on numerous GWAS projects.
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| Prizes and Honours |
| 2012 |
The Thorvald Madsen Prize |
| International Collaborations |
A number of collaborative projects with the Early Growth Genetics (EGG) consortium and the iPSYCH consortium. Many international collaborations, e.g., for replication of genetic association findings or functional follow-up experiments.
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| Selected recent publications |
| Liu X, Helenius D, Skotte L, …, Buil A, Feenstra B. Variants in the fetal genome near pro-inflammatory cytokine genes on 2q13 are associated with gestational duration. bioRxiv 2018; 423897, https://doi.org/10.1101/423897 |
Fadista J, Skotte L, …, Feenstra B. Genome-wide meta-analysis identifies BARX1 and EML4-MTA3 as new loci associated with infantile hypertrophic pyloric stenosis. Human Molecular Genetics 2018; ddy347, https://doi.org/10.1093/hmg/ddy347
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| Beaumont RN, Warrington NM, …, Evans DM*, Lawlor DA*, Feenstra B*, Freathy RM*. Genome-wide association study of offspring birth weight in 86,577 women identifies five novel loci and highlights maternal genetic effects that are independent of fetal genetics. Human Molecular Genetics 2018; 27, 742-756, https://doi.org/10.1093/hmg/ddx429 *Shared last author |
Zhang G, Feenstra B, …, Muglia LJ. Genetic Associations with Gestational Duration and Spontaneous Preterm Birth. New England Journal of Medicine 2017; 377, 1156-
1167, https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa1612665
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Feenstra B, …, Hviid A. Common variants associated with general and MMR vaccine-related febrile seizures. Nature Genetics 2014; 46: 1274-1282, https://doi.org/10.1038/ng.3129
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