Jason Torres is a senior genetic epidemiologist in the Clinical Trial Service Unit & Epidemiological Studies Unit in the Nuffield Department of Population Health, where he leads genetic analyses of the Mexico City Prospective Study.
He analyses large-scale genetic data (i.e. genome-wide array, WGS, WES) with the aim of identifying genetic risk factors for complex diseases such as type 2 diabetes and related cardiometabolic traits. Through fine-mapping and data integrative methods, Jason elucidates underlying biological processes that mediate genetic susceptibility to disease onset and progression. Moreover, he leverages genetic information to construct and evaluate polygenic risk scores and to facilitate inference of causal risk factors through Mendelian randomisation.
Jason received his PhD at the University of Chicago where he conducted genome-wide association studies and heritability estimation. Before joining NPDH, he worked at the Wellcome Centre for Human Genetics in Oxford as a postdoctoral research fellow where he integrated genetic fine-mapping data with functional genomic and molecular epigenomic features to resolve causal genes and relevant tissues at loci associated with type 2 diabetes.