DANA C. CRAWFORD, PHD
Associate Director for Population and Diversity Research
Dana Crawford, PhD, is Professor in the Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences and Associate Director for Population and Diversity Research 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 Ph.D. 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 variation data to large-scale epidemiologic and clinical cohorts to better understand human genotype-phenotype associations with an emphasis on diverse populations.
Recent Publications
- Conti, DV, Darst, BF, Moss, LC, Saunders, EJ, Sheng, X, Chou, A, Schumacher, FR, Olama, AAA, Benlloch, S, Dadaev, T et al.. Trans-ancestry genome-wide association meta-analysis of prostate cancer identifies new susceptibility loci and informs genetic risk prediction. Nat Genet 2021; 53 (1): 65-75. PubMed PMID:33398198 .
- Cooke Bailey, JN, Bush, WS, Crawford, DC. Editorial: The Importance of Diversity in Precision Medicine Research. Front Genet 2020; 11 : 875. PubMed PMID:33005167 PubMed Central PMC7479241.
- Ong, E, Wang, LL, Schaub, J, O'Toole, JF, Steck, B, Rosenberg, AZ, Dowd, F, Hansen, J, Barisoni, L, Jain, S et al.. Modelling kidney disease using ontology: insights from the Kidney Precision Medicine Project. Nat Rev Nephrol 2020; 16 (11): 686-696. PubMed PMID:32939051 .
- Karunamuni, RA, Huynh-Le, MP, Fan, CC, Thompson, W, Eeles, RA, Kote-Jarai, Z, Muir, K, UKGPCS Collaborators, Lophatananon, A, Tangen, CM et al.. African-specific improvement of a polygenic hazard score for age at diagnosis of prostate cancer. Int J Cancer 2021; 148 (1): 99-105. PubMed PMID:32930425 .
- McDonough, CW, Babcock, K, Chucri, K, Crawford, DC, Bian, J, Modave, F, Cooper-DeHoff, RM, Hogan, WR. Optimizing identification of resistant hypertension: Computable phenotype development and validation. Pharmacoepidemiol Drug Saf 2020; 29 (11): 1393-1401. PubMed PMID:32844549 PubMed Central PMC7754782.
- Darst, BF, Wan, P, Sheng, X, Bensen, JT, Ingles, SA, Rybicki, BA, Nemesure, B, John, EM, Fowke, JH, Stevens, VL et al.. A Germline Variant at 8q24 Contributes to Familial Clustering of Prostate Cancer in Men of African Ancestry. Eur Urol 2020; 78 (3): 316-320. PubMed PMID:32409115 PubMed Central PMC7805560.
- Pendergrass, SA, Buyske, S, Jeff, JM, Frase, A, Dudek, S, Bradford, Y, Ambite, JL, Avery, CL, Buzkova, P, Deelman, E et al.. A phenome-wide association study (PheWAS) in the Population Architecture using Genomics and Epidemiology (PAGE) study reveals potential pleiotropy in African Americans. PLoS One 2019; 14 (12): e0226771. PubMed PMID:31891604 PubMed Central PMC6938343.
- Crawford, DC, Lin, J, Cooke Bailey, JN, Kinzy, T, Sedor, JR, O'Toole, JF, Bush, WS. Frequency of ClinVar Pathogenic Variants in Chronic Kidney Disease Patients Surveyed for Return of Research Results at a Cleveland Public Hospital. Pac Symp Biocomput 2020; 25 : 575-586. PubMed PMID:31797629 PubMed Central PMC6931908.
- Bush, WS, Cooke Bailey, JN, Beno, MF, Crawford, DC. Bridging the Gaps in Personalized Medicine Value Assessment: A Review of the Need for Outcome Metrics across Stakeholders and Scientific Disciplines. Public Health Genomics 2019; 22 (1-2): 16-24. PubMed PMID:31454805 PubMed Central PMC6752968.
- Halladay, CW, Hadi, T, Anger, MD, Greenberg, PB, Sullivan, JM, Konicki, PE, Peachey, NS, Igo, RP Jr, Iyengar, SK, Wu, WC et al.. Genetically-guided algorithm development and sample size optimization for age-related macular degeneration cases and controls in electronic health records from the VA Million Veteran Program. AMIA Jt Summits Transl Sci Proc 2019; 2019 : 153-162. PubMed PMID:31258967 PubMed Central PMC6568141.
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 […]

eMERGE Phenome-Wide Association Study (PheWAS) identifies clinical associations and pleiotropy for stop-gain variants.
Verma A, Verma SS, Pendergrass SA, Crawford DC, Crosslin DR, Kuivaniemi H, Bush WS, Bradford Y, Kullo I, Bielinski SJ, Li R, Denny JC, Peissig P, Hebbring S, De Andrade M, Ritchie MD, Tromp G,. We explored premature stop-gain variants to test the hypothesis that variants, which are likely to have a consequence on protein […]

Genetic variation among 82 pharmacogenes: The PGRNseq data from the eMERGE network.
Bush WS, Crosslin DR, Owusu-Obeng A, Wallace J, Almoguera B, Basford MA, Bielinski SJ, Carrell DS, Connolly JJ, Crawford D, Doheny KF, Gallego CJ, Gordon AS, Keating B, Kirby J, Kitchner T, Manzi S, Mejia AR, Pan V, Perry CL, Peterson JF, Prows CA, Ralston J, Scott SA, Scrol A, Smith M, Stallings SC, Veldhuizen […]

Towards a phenome-wide catalog of human clinical traits impacted by genetic ancestry.
Dumitrescu L, Restrepo NA, Goodloe R, Boston J, Farber-Eger E, Pendergrass SA, Bush WS, Crawford DC,. Racial/ethnic differences for commonly measured clinical variables are well documented, and it has been postulated that population-specific genetic factors may play a role. The genetic heterogeneity of admixed populations, such as African Americans, provides a unique opportunity to identify […]
Dana on Twitter
At @genome_gov, we believe genomics cannot continue to thrive without people from diverse backgrounds, including underrepresented researchers and clinicians. Our new action agenda details our goals and objectives for building a more #diversegenomicsworkforce by 2030. Retweeted by Dr. Dana Crawford
Be sure and attend the Translational #Bioinformatics workshop at #PSB2021 on Thursday from 1-4 ET! We have an amazing lineup of speakers including @MarzyehGhassemi, Jonathan Haines, @inthosegenespod, & @dokyoon_kim with a panel discussion. upibi.org/tbworkshop/ Retweeted by Dr. Dana Crawford
@joanneberghout And a lively Q&A, I might add!
Well Toto, it looks like we are not in Kansas anymore... Or for the PSB attendees, we're not in Hawaii this time. I miss you all. But let's get into our great science from the safety of our homes. Looking forward to PSB 2022 - hopefully back on the island! Aloha, friends. #PSB21 twitter.com/PacSymBiocomp/… Retweeted by Dr. Dana Crawford
We're live! Join our first session "Computational Challenges and Artificial Intelligence in Precision Medicine" @CaturDNA @RoxanaDaneshjou @ProfLHunter @MarthaBulyk @LukaszPK @jonc101x @gregorymcinnes #psb21 #psb2021 twitter.com/pacsymbiocomp/… Retweeted by Dr. Dana Crawford
Putting the finishing touches on the introduction for our @PacSymBiocomp virtual session tomorrow! Really excited for the talks and posters on Computational Challenges and Artificial Intelligence in Precision Medicine. #PSB2021 Retweeted by Dr. Dana Crawford
It's January and time for some @PacSymBiocomp 2021! Don your best aloha and join us for the first session "Computational Challenges and Artificial Intelligence in Precision Medicine" Tuesday at 8am PT! @kidzik @olgafan @bulyk @joanneberghout
Humbled to be named alongside such brilliant human genetics and genomics colleagues in this year's AAAS Fellows list. Thanks to all those who trained and support me @emorygmb @uwgenome @GeneticsSociety @Cleveland_ICB @CWRUSOM twitter.com/aaas/status/13…
Congratulations to the 489 newly elected AAAS Fellows!
— AAAS (@aaas) November 24, 2020
A virtual induction ceremony for the 2020 Fellows will take place on Feb. 13, 2021, the Saturday following the #AAASmtg. See the full list of Fellows here: https://t.co/cEu5uNLJYF
@inthosegenespod @stephwen @EimearEKenny You and me both!
Looks like @GeneticsSociety Dr. Pulliam is doing double duty today! #ABRCMS2020 #CWRUSOM twitter.com/bgsocwru/statu…
Today is day 2 of BGSS! https://t.co/ShfhZwHkHd
— CWRU BGSO (@bgsocwru) November 10, 2020
I missed the talk but was able to join the Q&A. Excellent career advice and nothing but the COVID scientific facts from @KizzyPhD on emerging vaccine efficacy data, SARS-CoV-2 mutation rates, and more at #ABRCMS2020 twitter.com/FutureDrSLove/…
This Black Girl Magic! This talk was amazing. @KizzyPhD breaks down rapid Covid19 vaccine development during this pandemic! #ABRCMS2020 #ABRCMS https://t.co/NgPkXbnd0z
— Sierra Love (@FutureDrSLove) November 10, 2020
I am both happy and sad. This should have happened in 2016. #BidenHarrisToEndThisNightmare twitter.com/iamsambee/stat…
FINALLY https://t.co/LXYeYTwCBB
— Samantha Bee (@iamsambee) November 7, 2020
My new Sammy Bee best @FullFrontalSamB with great memories of the 2010 Rally to Restore Sanity @colbertlateshow Still trying to fix things, 10 years later. #LateShowPreShow #ScreamHere
So proud of our grad students doing more than their fair share on #ELECTIONDAY #Election2020 #Vote2020 #VOTE twitter.com/a_k_miller/sta…
A couple of Sanitation Officers reminding you to do your part! pic.twitter.com/fE0MDN28q8
— Anna Miller (@a_k_miller) November 3, 2020
Sweet child o' mine, what a #ASHGMemory @illumina! I'm at #ASHG20 partying like it's pre-pandemic ASHG 2018 in San Diego!
Tonight's gonna be a good night, indeed! #ThrowbackThursday #ASHGMemory #ASHG20 @cgonzagaj twitter.com/cgonzagaj/stat…
#ThrowbackThursday #ASHGmemory #ASHG20 @CaturDNA https://t.co/HRQRm9KmJJ
— Claudia Gonzaga-Jauregui (@cgonzagaj) October 29, 2020
Late into the @illumina party, ASHG San Diego 2007. The hip hop dancers have left the scientists to party on. And party on they did. #ASHGMemory #ASHG20