Eimear E Kenny, PhD
- ASSISTANT PROFESSOR | Genetics and Genomic Sciences
Research Topics:
Genetics, Genomics
Click here for Kenny lab website.
Dr. Eimear Kenny is Assistant Professor of Genetics and Genome Science, and is a member of the Charles Bronfman Institute of Personalized Medicine, the Institute of Genomics and Multiscale Biology and the Center for Statistical Genetics, at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. The overall goal of Dr. Kennys lab is to realize the full potential of genomics to infer human history and evolution and to inform better models for clinical medicine. (published in leading research journals including Nature,Science, Cell, Nature Genetics, PNAS and PLoS Genetics). Her current focus is in developing statistical and genomic resources to enable functional genetic variant discovery in global populations. Dr. Kenny's recent work (with co-authors) describing a novel variant that causes blond hair in the Solomon Islands, Melanesia, (and published in Science journal) was featured in the New York Times. She completed a B.Sc.in Biochemistry in Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, a M.Sc. in Bioinformatics at the University of Leeds, England, and a Ph.D. in Statistical Genetics at Rockefeller University, New York. Dr. Kenny joined the faculty at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in November, 2012.
Multi-Disciplinary Training Area
Genetics and Genomic Sciences [GGS]Education
BSc, Trinity College Dublin
MSc, University of Leeds
PhD, Rockefeller University
Post-doc, Stanford University
Research Interests:
Our research focuses on the analysis of human genetic variation to address fundamental questions in biology, medicine and anthropology. We are interested in detecting patterns of demography in genomic data to inform our inference of human evolution and history, and result in better outcomes for medical genomics. Specifically, we combine population genetics theory, complex disease mapping, statistical modeling and experimentation to gain a deeper understanding of the landscape of genetic variation in global populations and its impact on function, fitness and survival. A detailed description of current projects can be found here.
Click here to see an up-to-date list of publications.
Fu W, O'Connor TD, Jun G, Kang HM, Abecasis G, Leal SM, Gabriel S, Altshuler D, Shendure J, Nickerson DA, Bamshad MJ, Exome Sequencing Project , Akey JM. Analysis of 6,515 exomes reveals the recent origin of most human protein-coding variants. Nature 2013 Jan; 493(7431).
Abecasis GR, Auton A, Brooks LD, DePristo MA, Durbin RM, Handsaker RE, Kang HM, Marth GT, McVean GA. An integrated map of genetic variation from 1,092 human genomes. Nature 2012 Nov; 491(7422).
Abecasis GR, Auton A, Brooks LD, DePristo MA, Durbin RM, Handsaker RE, Kang HM, Marth GT, McVean GA. An integrated map of genetic variation from 1,092 human genomes. Nature 2012 Nov; 491(7422).
Emond MJ, Louie T, Emerson J, Zhao W, Mathias RA, Knowles MR, Wright FA, Rieder MJ, Tabor HK, Nickerson DA, Barnes KC, Gibson RL, Bamshad MJ. Exome sequencing of extreme phenotypes identifies DCTN4 as a modifier of chronic Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection in cystic fibrosis. Nature genetics 2012 Aug; 44(8).
Tennessen JA, Bigham AW, O'Connor TD, Fu W, Kenny EE, Gravel S, McGee S, Do R, Liu X, Jun G, Kang HM, Jordan D, Leal SM, Gabriel S, Rieder MJ, Abecasis G, Altshuler D, Nickerson DA, Boerwinkle E, Sunyaev S, Bustamante CD, Bamshad MJ, Akey JM. Evolution and functional impact of rare coding variation from deep sequencing of human exomes. Science (New York, N.Y.) 2012 Jul; 337(6090).
Kenny EE, Timpson NJ, Sikora M, Yee MC, Moreno-Estrada A, Eng C, Huntsman S, Burchard EG, Stoneking M, Bustamante CD, Myles S. Melanesian blond hair is caused by an amino acid change in TYRP1. Science (New York, N.Y.) 2012 May; 336(6081).
Kenny EE, Pe'er I, Karban A, Ozelius L, Mitchell AA, Ng SM, Erazo M, Ostrer H, Abraham C, Abreu MT, Atzmon G, Barzilai N, Brant SR, Bressman S, Burns ER, Chowers Y, Clark LN, Darvasi A, Doheny D, Duerr RH, Eliakim R, Giladi N, Gregersen PK, Hakonarson H, Jones MR, Marder K, McGovern DP, Mulle J, Orr-Urtreger A, Proctor DD, Pulver A, Rotter JI, Silverberg MS, Ullman T, Warren ST, Waterman M, Zhang W, Bergman A, Mayer L, Katz S, Desnick RJ, Cho JH, Peter I. A genome-wide scan of Ashkenazi Jewish Crohn's disease suggests novel susceptibility loci. PLoS genetics 2012; 8(3).
Gusev A, Shah MJ, Kenny EE, Ramachandran A, Lowe JK, Salit J, Lee CC, Levandowsky EC, Weaver TN, Doan QC, Peckham HE, McLaughlin SF, Lyons MR, Sheth VN, Stoffel M, De La Vega FM, Friedman JM, Breslow JL, Pe'er I. Low-pass genome-wide sequencing and variant inference using identity-by-descent in an isolated human population. Genetics 2012 Feb; 190(2).
Kenny EE, Bustamante CD. SnapShot: Human biomedical genomics. Cell 2011 Sep; 147(1).
Gusev A, Kenny EE, Lowe JK, Salit J, Saxena R, Kathiresan S, Altshuler DM, Friedman JM, Breslow JL, Pe'er I. DASH: a method for identical-by-descent haplotype mapping uncovers association with recent variation. American journal of human genetics 2011 Jun; 88(6).
Kenny EE, Kim M, Gusev A, Lowe JK, Salit J, Smith JG, Kovvali S, Kang HM, Newton-Cheh C, Daly MJ, Stoffel M, Altshuler DM, Friedman JM, Eskin E, Breslow JL, Pe'er I. Increased power of mixed models facilitates association mapping of 10 loci for metabolic traits in an isolated population. Human molecular genetics 2011 Feb; 20(4).
Kenny EE, Gusev A, Riegel K, Lütjohann D, Lowe JK, Salit J, Maller JB, Stoffel M, Daly MJ, Altshuler DM, Friedman JM, Breslow JL, Pe'er I, Sehayek E. Systematic haplotype analysis resolves a complex plasma plant sterol locus on the Micronesian Island of Kosrae. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 2009 Aug; 106(33).
Lowe JK, Maller JB, Pe'er I, Neale BM, Salit J, Kenny EE, Shea JL, Burkhardt R, Smith JG, Ji W, Noel M, Foo JN, Blundell ML, Skilling V, Garcia L, Sullivan ML, Lee HE, Labek A, Ferdowsian H, Auerbach SB, Lifton RP, Newton-Cheh C, Breslow JL, Stoffel M, Daly MJ, Altshuler DM, Friedman JM. Genome-wide association studies in an isolated founder population from the Pacific Island of Kosrae. PLoS genetics 2009 Feb; 5(2).
Burkhardt R, Kenny EE, Lowe JK, Birkeland A, Josowitz R, Noel M, Salit J, Maller JB, Pe'er I, Daly MJ, Altshuler D, Stoffel M, Friedman JM, Breslow JL. Common SNPs in HMGCR in micronesians and whites associated with LDL-cholesterol levels affect alternative splicing of exon13. Arteriosclerosis, thrombosis, and vascular biology 2008 Nov; 28(11).
Schwarz EM, Antoshechkin I, Bastiani C, Bieri T, Blasiar D, Canaran P, Chan J, Chen N, Chen WJ, Davis P, Fiedler TJ, Girard L, Harris TW, Kenny EE, Kishore R, Lawson D, Lee R, Müller HM, Nakamura C, Ozersky P, Petcherski A, Rogers A, Spooner W, Tuli MA, Van Auken K, Wang D, Durbin R, Spieth J, Stein LD, Sternberg PW. WormBase: better software, richer content. Nucleic acids research 2006 Jan; 34(Database issue).
Müller HM, Kenny EE, Sternberg PW. Textpresso: an ontology-based information retrieval and extraction system for biological literature. PLoS biology 2004 Nov; 2(11).
Chen N, Harris TW, Antoshechkin I, Bastiani C, Bieri T, Blasiar D, Bradnam K, Canaran P, Chan J, Chen CK, Chen WJ, Cunningham F, Davis P, Kenny E, Kishore R, Lawson D, Lee R, Muller HM, Nakamura C, Pai S, Ozersky P, Petcherski A, Rogers A, Sabo A, Schwarz EM, Van Auken K, Wang Q, Durbin R, Spieth J, Sternberg PW, Stein LD. WormBase: a comprehensive data resource for Caenorhabditis biology and genomics. Nucleic acids research 2005 Jan; 33(Database issue).
Harris TW, Chen N, Cunningham F, Tello-Ruiz M, Antoshechkin I, Bastiani C, Bieri T, Blasiar D, Bradnam K, Chan J, Chen CK, Chen WJ, Davis P, Kenny E, Kishore R, Lawson D, Lee R, Muller HM, Nakamura C, Ozersky P, Petcherski A, Rogers A, Sabo A, Schwarz EM, Van Auken K, Wang Q, Durbin R, Spieth J, Sternberg PW, Stein LD. WormBase: a multi-species resource for nematode biology and genomics. Nucleic acids research 2004 Jan; 32(Database issue).
Mayer C, Köhrer C, Kenny E, Prusko C, RajBhandary UL. Anticodon sequence mutants of Escherichia coli initiator tRNA: effects of overproduction of aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases, methionyl-tRNA formyltransferase, and initiation factor 2 on activity in initiation. Biochemistry 2003 May; 42(17).
Harris TW, Lee R, Schwarz E, Bradnam K, Lawson D, Chen W, Blasier D, Kenny E, Cunningham F, Kishore R, Chan J, Muller HM, Petcherski A, Thorisson G, Day A, Bieri T, Rogers A, Chen CK, Spieth J, Sternberg P, Durbin R, Stein LD. WormBase: a cross-species database for comparative genomics. Nucleic acids research 2003 Jan; 31(1).
Physicians and scientists on the faculty of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai often interact with pharmaceutical, device and biotechnology companies to improve patient care, develop new therapies and achieve scientific breakthroughs. In order to promote an ethical and transparent environment for conducting research, providing clinical care and teaching, Mount Sinai requires that salaried faculty inform the School of their relationships with such companies.
Below are financial relationships with industry reported by Dr. Kenny during 2017 and/or 2018. Please note that this information may differ from information posted on corporate sites due to timing or classification differences.
Industry-Sponsored Lectures: MSSM faculty occasionally give lectures at events sponsored by industry, but only if the events are free of any marketing purpose.
- Illumina, Inc.
Mount Sinai's faculty policies relating to faculty collaboration with industry are posted on our website. Patients may wish to ask their physician about the activities they perform for companies.