Reilly Lab
Principal Investigator: Muredach P Reilly
Institution: Columbia University (New York, NY)
Primary Subfield: Genetics/Genomics
Recruitment Status: ✅ Accepting PhD Students
Research Focus
Despite success of lipid lowering therapies, atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains the leading cause of death worldwide. We use human genetics coupled to single cell profiling of atherosclerotic lesions to provide insights into new molecular and cell-specific mechanisms of plaque vulnerability and CVD risk. Although plaque histology classifications have identified key characteristics (e.g., thin fibrous caps) that relate to clinical events, traditional histology may not capture the molecular complexity and full informativeness of lesion histology. There is great need for evaluation and integration of new histomorphological (HM), cellular, genomic and spatial features of plaque vulnerability in human lesions as well as in mouse models, which fail to recapitulate key lesion hallmarks of clinical events in humans. Our preliminary data in human and mouse atherosclerotic lesions suggest that advanced machine learning (ML) algorithms can identify novel HM and spatial transcriptomic (ST) features of plaque vulnerability. We propose to: (1) in Aim 1, apply our novel hierarchical image feature ML extraction approach to high-resolution histology image data from unstable (n=300…
Active NIH Awards
- 5R01HL171595-03: Integration of spatial transcriptomics, genetics, and histomorphology for causal inference in atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (2026)
- 5R01HL169766-04: Identification of smooth muscle cell genes causal in atherosclerotic plaque stability and cardiovascular disease risk (2026)
- 5P01HL172741-03: Bioinformatics and Biostatistics (2026)
- 5R01HL166916-04: Smooth muscle cell-derived cell fates and cellular interactions in atherosclerotic plaque stability in disease progression and regression. (2026)
- 1UM1TR006153-01: Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) UM1 at Columbia University (2026)
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