Dr. Misa Graff is Research Assistant Professor of Epidemiology at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health. Dr. Graff's research interests focus on the genetics of obesity and cardiovascular disease risk traits, with an overarching goal of integrating understanding of both genetic and environmental risk factors for disease, particularly among minority populations. Dr. Graff's current projects include the genetic epidemiology of weight gain across adolescence into young adulthood; gene-environment interactions across multiple large cohorts; the genetic architecture of adiposity in African Americans and Hispanics; and examination of genetic effects influencing cardiovascular disease risk traits and diseases burdening minority populations.
Recent Publications
- Selvaraj, MS, Li, X, Li, Z, Pampana, A, Zhang, DY, Park, J, Aslibekyan, S, Bis, JC, Brody, JA, Cade, BE et al.. Whole genome sequence analysis of blood lipid levels in >66,000 individuals. Nat Commun 2022; 13 (1): 5995. PubMed PMID:36220816 PubMed Central PMC9553944.
- Anwar, MY, Baldassari, AR, Polikowsky, HG, Sitlani, CM, Highland, HM, Chami, N, Chen, HH, Graff, M, Howard, AG, Jung, SY et al.. Genetic pleiotropy underpinning adiposity and inflammation in self-identified Hispanic/Latino populations. BMC Med Genomics 2022; 15 (1): 192. PubMed PMID:36088317 PubMed Central PMC9464371.
- Downie, CG, Highland, HM, Lee, MP, Raffield, LM, Preuss, M, Whitsel, EA, Psaty, BM, Sitlani, CM, Graff, M, Avery, CL et al.. Genome Wide Association Studies of Variant-by-Thiazide Interaction on Lipids Identifies a Novel Low-Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol Locus. Circ Res 2022; 131 (3): 277-279. PubMed PMID:35701873 PubMed Central PMC9348605.
- Highland, HM, Wojcik, GL, Graff, M, Nishimura, KK, Hodonsky, CJ, Baldassari, AR, Cote, AC, Cheng, I, Gignoux, CR, Tao, R et al.. Predicted gene expression in ancestrally diverse populations leads to discovery of susceptibility loci for lifestyle and cardiometabolic traits. Am J Hum Genet 2022; 109 (4): 669-679. PubMed PMID:35263625 PubMed Central PMC9069067.
- Downie, CG, Dimos, SF, Bien, SA, Hu, Y, Darst, BF, Polfus, LM, Wang, Y, Wojcik, GL, Tao, R, Raffield, LM et al.. Multi-ethnic GWAS and fine-mapping of glycaemic traits identify novel loci in the PAGE Study. Diabetologia 2022; 65 (3): 477-489. PubMed PMID:34951656 PubMed Central PMC8810722.
- Kim, D, Justice, AE, Chittoor, G, Blanco, E, Burrows, R, Graff, M, Howard, AG, Wang, Y, Rohde, R, Buchanan, VL et al.. Genetic determinants of metabolic biomarkers and their associations with cardiometabolic traits in Hispanic/Latino adolescents. Pediatr Res 2022; 92 (2): 563-571. PubMed PMID:34645953 PubMed Central PMC9005573.
- Sun, Q, Graff, M, Rowland, B, Wen, J, Huang, L, Miller-Fleming, TW, Haessler, J, Preuss, MH, Chai, JF, Lee, MP et al.. Analyses of biomarker traits in diverse UK biobank participants identify associations missed by European-centric analysis strategies. J Hum Genet 2022; 67 (2): 87-93. PubMed PMID:34376796 PubMed Central PMC8792153.
- Graff, M, Justice, AE, Young, KL, Marouli, E, Zhang, X, Fine, RS, Lim, E, Buchanan, V, Rand, K, Feitosa, MF et al.. Discovery and fine-mapping of height loci via high-density imputation of GWASs in individuals of African ancestry. Am J Hum Genet 2021; 108 (4): 564-582. PubMed PMID:33713608 PubMed Central PMC8059339.
- Hou, R, Cole, SA, Graff, M, Wang, Y, Haack, K, Laston, S, Mehta, NR, Shypailo, RJ, Gourlay, ML, Comuzzie, AG et al.. Genetic variants and physical activity interact to affect bone density in Hispanic children. BMC Pediatr 2021; 21 (1): 79. PubMed PMID:33588791 PubMed Central PMC7883422.
- Buchanan, VL, Wang, Y, Blanco, E, Graff, M, Albala, C, Burrows, R, Santos, JL, Angel, B, Lozoff, B, Voruganti, VS et al.. Genome-wide association study identifying novel variant for fasting insulin and allelic heterogeneity in known glycemic loci in Chilean adolescents: The Santiago Longitudinal Study. Pediatr Obes 2021; 16 (7): e12765. PubMed PMID:33381925 PubMed Central PMC8711702.
