Current Position
Principal Scientific Manager, Genentech (2023-present)
Previous Positions
Crawford Post-Doctoral Fellow co-mentored with Dr. Marylyn Ritchie (2009-2011)
Research Faculty, Center for Systems Genomics, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, The Pennsylvania State University (2011-2014)
Assistant (Investigator I) Professor in the Biomedical and Translational Informatics Program at Geisinger Health System (2015-2019)
Senior Scientific Manager, Genentech (2019-2023)
Research Interests
Rion is a genetic bioinformatician who focuses on high-throughput data analysis and data-mining approaches to studying complex human diseases and traits. Rion has extensive experience in using both epidemiologic and clinic-based resources to perform phenome-wide association studies (PheWAS) to identify cross-phenotype associations and pleiotropy. Rion also develops software tools to visualize complex data.
Recent Publications
- Jasper, EA, Mautz, BS, Hellwege, JN, Piekos, JA, Jones, SH, Zhang, Y, Torstenson, ES, Pendergrass, SA, Lee, MTM, Edwards, TL et al.. A phenome-wide association study of uterine fibroids reveals a marked burden of comorbidities. Commun Med (Lond) 2025; 5 (1): 174. PubMed PMID:40374878 PubMed Central PMC12081880.
- Donoghue, LJ, Benner, C, Chang, D, Irudayanathan, FJ, Pendergrass, RK, Yaspan, BL, Mahajan, A, McCarthy, MI. Integration of biobank-scale genetics and plasma proteomics reveals evidence for causal processes in asthma risk and heterogeneity. Cell Genom 2025; 5 (5): 100840. PubMed PMID:40187354 PubMed Central PMC12143328.
- Sun, BB, Chiou, J, Traylor, M, Benner, C, Hsu, YH, Richardson, TG, Surendran, P, Mahajan, A, Robins, C, Vasquez-Grinnell, SG et al.. Plasma proteomic associations with genetics and health in the UK Biobank. Nature 2023; 622 (7982): 329-338. PubMed PMID:37794186 PubMed Central PMC10567551.
- Stockwell, AD, Chang, MC, Mahajan, A, Forrest, W, Anegondi, N, Pendergrass, RK, Selvaraj, S, Reeder, J, Wei, E, Iglesias, VA et al.. Multi-ancestry GWAS analysis identifies two novel loci associated with diabetic eye disease and highlights APOL1 as a high risk locus in patients with diabetic macular edema. PLoS Genet 2023; 19 (8): e1010609. PubMed PMID:37585454 PubMed Central PMC10461827.
- Graham, SE, Clarke, SL, Wu, KH, Kanoni, S, Zajac, GJM, Ramdas, S, Surakka, I, Ntalla, I, Vedantam, S, Winkler, TW et al.. Author Correction: The power of genetic diversity in genome-wide association studies of lipids. Nature 2023; 618 (7965): E19-E20. PubMed PMID:37237109 PubMed Central PMC10355188.
- Kurki, MI, Karjalainen, J, Palta, P, Sipilä, TP, Kristiansson, K, Donner, KM, Reeve, MP, Laivuori, H, Aavikko, M, Kaunisto, MA et al.. Author Correction: FinnGen provides genetic insights from a well-phenotyped isolated population. Nature 2023; 615 (7952): E19. PubMed PMID:36829046 PubMed Central PMC10017492.
- Kurki, MI, Karjalainen, J, Palta, P, Sipilä, TP, Kristiansson, K, Donner, KM, Reeve, MP, Laivuori, H, Aavikko, M, Kaunisto, MA et al.. FinnGen provides genetic insights from a well-phenotyped isolated population. Nature 2023; 613 (7944): 508-518. PubMed PMID:36653562 PubMed Central PMC9849126.
- Gorski, M, Rasheed, H, Teumer, A, Thomas, LF, Graham, SE, Sveinbjornsson, G, Winkler, TW, Günther, F, Stark, KJ, Chai, JF et al.. Genetic loci and prioritization of genes for kidney function decline derived from a meta-analysis of 62 longitudinal genome-wide association studies. Kidney Int 2022; 102 (3): 624-639. PubMed PMID:35716955 PubMed Central PMC10034922.
- Winkler, TW, Rasheed, H, Teumer, A, Gorski, M, Rowan, BX, Stanzick, KJ, Thomas, LF, Tin, A, Hoppmann, A, Chu, AY et al.. Differential and shared genetic effects on kidney function between diabetic and non-diabetic individuals. Commun Biol 2022; 5 (1): 580. PubMed PMID:35697829 PubMed Central PMC9192715.
- Piekos, JA, Hellwege, JN, Zhang, Y, Torstenson, ES, Jarvik, GP, Dikilitas, O, Kullo, IJ, Schaid, DJ, Crosslin, DR, Pendergrass, SA et al.. Uterine fibroid polygenic risk score (PRS) associates and predicts risk for uterine fibroid. Hum Genet 2022; 141 (11): 1739-1748. PubMed PMID:35226188 PubMed Central PMC9420161.