Ani Manichaikul, PhD
Large-scale genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of lung function and COPD have identified more than 1,000 independent genetic association signals, but the metabolic implications of the GWAS signals remains unclear. To address this gap, Ani Manichaikul, PhD, in the Department of Genome Sciences, and a team of researchers, are developing a new set of statistical tools and resources called MeaboXcan to extract more comprehensive information from GWAS that may unlock new insights into the pathophysiology of COPD.
Manichaikul recently received a new $3 million grant from the NIH National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) for research to expand the MetaboXcan framework using newly available metabolomics data, from human plasma and lung tissue, and apply the framework to identify metabolic pathways underlying risk of COPD through integration with genome-wide studies of COPD in NHLBI Cohorts and real-world biobank data. Her research aims to establish an expanded view of the metabolomic targets and pathways influenced by genetic variation for COPD, which will also provided a foundation for future precision nutrition and drug development efforts.
UVA collaborators on this project include Xiaowei Hu, PhD, in the Department of Genome Sciences, and John Kim, MD, in the Department of Medicine Division of Pulmonary Critical Care.
Originally posted in Medicine in Motion News December 8, 2025 by jta6n@virginia.edu