DANA C. CRAWFORD, PHD

Associate Director for Community and Population Research & Outreach

Dana Craw­ford, PhD, is Pro­fes­sor in the Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences and Associate Director for Community and Population Research & Outreach in the Cleveland Insti­tute for Com­pu­ta­tional Biol­ogy. She also has a secondary appointment in the Department of Genetics and Genome Sciences. Dr. Craw­ford received her PhD at Emory Uni­ver­sity in genet­ics and mol­e­c­u­lar biol­ogy in 2000 and then trained as a post-doctoral fel­low as an Epi­demic Intel­li­gence Ser­vice Offi­cer at the Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion (2000–2002) and as a senior fel­low at the Uni­ver­sity of Washington’s Depart­ment of Genome Sci­ences (2002–2006). Prior to her most cur­rent posi­tion, Dr. Craw­ford spent eight years as tenure-track fac­ulty in the Depart­ment of Mol­e­c­u­lar Phys­i­ol­ogy and Bio­physics and Inves­ti­ga­tor in the Cen­ter for Human Genet­ics Research at Van­der­bilt Uni­ver­sity. As a genetic epi­demi­ol­o­gist at CWRU, Dr. Crawford’s broad research inter­ests include apply­ing genetic data to large-scale epi­demi­o­logic and clin­i­cal cohorts to bet­ter under­stand human genotype-phenotype asso­ci­a­tions.

Recent Publications

  1. Rose, CM, Bush, WS, Beno, MF, Williams, SM, Haines, JL, Crawford, DC. Leadership, Informatics Expertise, and Resources: Determinants of Institutional Data Sharing in the National Clinical Cohort Collaborative (N3C). AMIA Jt Summits Transl Sci Proc 2026; 2026 : 381-389. PubMed PMID:42317826 PubMed Central PMC13274281.
  2. Kinzy, TG, Asowata, OJ, Cruz, LA, Waksmunski, AR, Cai, J, Mehta, P, Mitchell, SL, Svaren, L, Aboobakar, IF, Alimi, AA et al.. A Primary Open-Angle Glaucoma Locus Near Transcription Factor PRRX1 Identified in the Million Veteran Program. Ophthalmol Sci 2026; 6 (7): 101196. PubMed PMID:42256007 PubMed Central PMC13240803.
  3. Melo Ferreira, R, Gisch, DL, Phillips, CL, Cheng, YH, Lucarelli, N, Yennapureddy, S, Asthana, M, Lake, BB, Bowen, WS, Fang, F et al.. A MEF2C transcription factor network regulates proliferation of glomerular endothelial cells in diabetic kidney disease. Kidney Int 2026; 110 (1): 227-244. PubMed PMID:42055320 PubMed Central PMC13231425.
  4. Yang, D, Yang, Y, Ray, NR, Li, M, Benchek, P, Crawford, DC, O'Toole, JF, Sedor, JR, Reitz, C, Lynn, A et al.. Shared Genetic Architecture Between Kidney Function and Alzheimer Disease Across Ancestries. medRxiv 2026; : . PubMed PMID:42006785 PubMed Central PMC13086095.
  5. Aboobakar, IF, Cruz, LA, Kinzy, TG, Luo, Y, Nallapaneni, S, Do, R, Vy, TH, Zhao, H, Tran, J, Hysi, PG et al.. Whole-genome sequence genome-wide association study in All of Us identifies a novel glaucoma risk locus in African ancestry individuals. medRxiv 2026; : . PubMed PMID:41891005 PubMed Central PMC13015623.
  6. Liu, S, Bush, WS, Kunkle, BW, Byrd, GS, Reitz, C, Tosto, G, Rajabli, F, Caban-Holt, AM, Cuccaro, M, Starks, T et al.. Dissecting Alzheimer's disease heritability across populations. Alzheimers Dement 2026; 22 (3): e71236. PubMed PMID:41880092 PubMed Central PMC13093350.
  7. Rose, CM, Liu, S, Bush, WS, Haines, JL, Williams, SM, Crawford, DC. Opposing effects of SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 infection and recombinant zoster vaccination on the risk of late-onset Alzheimer disease. medRxiv 2026; : . PubMed PMID:41646775 PubMed Central PMC12870690.
  8. Cruz, LA, Liu, S, Miskimen, KL, Cooke Bailey, JN, Kinzy, T, Song, YE, Laux, RA, Miron, P, Ogrocki, PK, Lerner, AJ et al.. Evidence for reduced somatic T-cell receptor sequence diversity profiles among Midwestern Amish in an aging cohort study. medRxiv 2026; : . PubMed PMID:41646721 PubMed Central PMC12870599.
  9. Crawford, DC, Vazquez-Hidalgo, E, Lou, H. PREP-aring is worth it: Success of the Case Western Reserve University Post-baccalaureate Research Education Program and its Scholars. bioRxiv 2026; : . PubMed PMID:41509381 PubMed Central PMC12776309.
  10. Miller, AK, Bartlett, J, Pan, C, Lusis, AJ, Crawford, DC, Williams, SM, Buchner, DA. Concordance between male- and female-specific GWAS results helps define underlying genetic architecture of complex traits. Nat Commun 2025; 16 (1): 8695. PubMed PMID:41028716 PubMed Central PMC12485208.
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Featured Publications

Trans-ethnic fine-mapping of genetic loci for body mass index in the diverse ancestral populations of the Population Architecture using Genomics and Epidemiology (PAGE) Study reveals evidence for multiple signals at established loci.

Fernández-Rhodes L, Gong J, Haessler J, Franceschini N, Graff M, Nishimura KK, Wang Y, Highland HM, Yoneyama S, Bush WS, Goodloe R, Ritchie MD, Crawford D, Gross M, Fornage M, Buzkova P, Tao R, Isasi C, Avilés-Santa L, Daviglus M, Mackey RH, Houston D, Gu CC, Ehret G, Nguyen KH, Lewis CE, Leppert M, Irvin […]