Lappalainen Lab

Tuuli Lappalainen, PhD, is a Senior Associate Member at the New York Genome Center. Dr. Lappalainen’s research focuses on functional genetic variation in human populations. She and her lab are particularly interested in characterizing how genetic variants affect the transcriptome, and how these cellular changes contribute to genetic risk for both common and rare diseases and traits. Dr. Lappalainen and her lab analyze these questions both by computational integration analysis of large genomic and transcriptomic data sets and by experimental approaches. She has made important contributions to several international research consortia in human genomics, including the 1000 Genomes Project, the Geuvadis Consortium, the Genotype Tissue Expression (GTEx) Project, TOPMed, and other programs. She is a principal investigator of numerous NIH grants from the NIGMS, NHLBI, NIMH, and NIA. Dr. Lappalainen’s recent awards include the Harold and Golden Lamport Research award presented by Columbia University Irving Medical Center’s Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, and the Leena Peltonen Prize for Excellence in Human Genetics. Dr. Lappalainen received her PhD in Genetics from the University of Helsinki, followed by postdoctoral research at the University of Geneva and Stanford University.