Current Position
Associate Professor, Geisinger Medical Center (2025-present)
Previous Positions
Crawford Graduate Student (2009-2014)
Post-Doctoral Fellow, Department of Human Genetics, University of Michigan (2014-2017)
Bioinformatics Staff Scientist, Autism & Developmental Medicine Institute (ADMI), Geisinger Health System (2017-2019)
Assistant Professor, Geisinger Medical Center (2020-2025)
Research Interests
Matt's graduate research was focused on the utilization of an EMR-linked biorepository for pharmacogenetic studies on a wide range of drugs including clopidogrel, warfarin, calcineurin-inhibitors, and statins. Matt's current research interests include the genetics of drug efficacy and adverse drug response, data-mining clinical data from electronic medical records, functional variation in pharmacogenes, and phenome-wide association studies. Matt's research skills include the design of pharmacogenomic studies in an EMR-based biobank, genetic analysis of SNP data and rare variants, and experience with large datasets.
Recent Publications
- Winters, AH, Kelly, MA, Syed, MG, Bergquist, T, Berry, ASF, Mohammed, N, Cawley, D, Jones, LK, Pejaver, V, Gidding, SS et al.. A Genome-First Study of Familial Hypercholesterolemia Comparing African and European Ancestry Individuals. Circulation 2026; 153 (24): 1928-1939. PubMed PMID:42212376 PubMed Central PMC13225614.
- Berry, ASF, Cawley, D, Hattenberger, A, Chang, AR, Hegele, RA, Gidding, SS, Oetjens, MT. Monogenic ALB Variants as Determinants of Severe Hypercholesterolemia: A Population-Based Cohort Study. J Am Coll Cardiol 2026; : . PubMed PMID:42126373 .
- Sacks, MF, Klein, M, Bigdeli, TB, Kals, M, Oetjens, MT, Bénitière, F, Johnson, J, Maihofer, A, Nõukas, M, Francis, M et al.. Combinatorial effects of gene dosage, polygenic background and environment on complex traits. medRxiv 2026; : . PubMed PMID:42094142 PubMed Central PMC13142611.
- Thomas, JT, Berry, ASF, Oetjens, MT, Berry, JG, MacLennan, AH, Gordon, SD, Hale, AT, Olsen, CM, Whiteman, DC, Torene, RI et al.. Testing the performance of polygenic scores for multiple traits to explain cerebral palsy in two independent cohorts. EBioMedicine 2026; 126 : 106208. PubMed PMID:41833578 PubMed Central PMC13000708.
- Shimelis, H, Oetjens, MT, McGivern, B, Zhang, Z, Stanton, JE, McSalley, I, Ganesan, S, Finucane, BM, Helbig, I, Martin, CL et al.. Shared and distinct phenotypic profiles among neurodevelopmental disorder genes. medRxiv 2026; : . PubMed PMID:41757165 PubMed Central PMC12934880.
- Tan, T, Jayashankar, H, Guan, J, Nehzati, SM, Mir, M, Bennett, M, Agerbo, E, Ahlskog, R, Pinto de Andrade Anapaz, V, Åsvold, BO et al.. Family-GWAS reveals effects of environment and mating on genetic associations. medRxiv 2025; : . PubMed PMID:41282763 PubMed Central PMC12633112.
- Jensen, M, Smolen, C, Tyryshkina, A, Pizzo, L, Sun, J, Noss, S, Banerjee, D, Oetjens, M, Shimelis, H, Taylor, CM et al.. Genetic modifiers and ascertainment drive variable expressivity of complex disorders. Cell 2025; 188 (25): 7065-7082.e17. PubMed PMID:41061703 PubMed Central PMC12614355.
- Finucane, BM, Myers, SM, Ledbetter, DH, Martin, CL, Oetjens, MT. Apples, Oranges, and Biobanks: Ascertainment Bias in Population-Based Studies of Neurodevelopmental Psychiatric Disorders. Am J Med Genet B Neuropsychiatr Genet 2025; 198 (7): 73-75. PubMed PMID:40439075 PubMed Central PMC12354158.
- Berry, ASF, Finucane, BM, Myers, SM, Martin, CL, Ledbetter, DH, Willard, HF, Oetjens, MT. X and Y gene dosage effects are primary contributors to human sexual dimorphism: The case of height. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2025; 122 (22): e2503039122. PubMed PMID:40388606 PubMed Central PMC12146736.
- Mitchel, MW, Oetjens, M, Berry, ASF, Johns, A, Moreno-De-Luca, A, Torene, RI, Strande, NT, DiStefano, MT, Dyer, LH, Brandt, T et al.. Monogenic disorders associated with motor speech phenotypes in children and adolescents undergoing clinical exome sequencing. Genet Med 2025; 27 (4): 101374. PubMed PMID:39931922 PubMed Central PMC11985296.