Sarah A. Pendergrass, PhD, MS
Dr. Sarah Pendergrass is Assistant (Investigator I) Professor in the Biomedical and Translational Informatics Program at Geisinger Health System. Dr. Pendergrass is a genetic bioinformatician who focuses on high-throughput data analysis and data-mining approaches to studying complex human diseases and traits. Dr. Pendergrass 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. Dr. Pendergrass also develops software tools to visualize complex data. In recognition for her innovative work, Dr. Pendergrass was named one of Genome Technology’s PIs of Tomorrow (2013).
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.
