Faculty

Burcu Darst

Affiliate Assistant Professor, Epidemiology

206-667-1036

Education

PhD Epidemiology, University of Wisconsin (Madison), 2018
BS Cognitive Science, University of California (San Diego), 2009

Contact

206-667-1036

Office M4-B873
1100 Fairview Ave N
Seattle, WA 98109
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Bio

Dr. Burcu Darst’s is a genetic epidemiologist with research focused on identifying and understanding genetic and multi-omic risk factors of complex diseases in diverse populations, particularly how they relate to health disparities. Her research lies predominantly in studying prostate cancer, type 2 diabetes, and Alzheimer’s disease, with the underlying goal of identifying risk factors that could prevent the onset and health disparities of these diseases. Dr. Darst’s research is based on a variety of approaches, including using rare genetic variants captured with genomic sequencing, genome-wide association studies, polygenic risk scores, and metabolomics to understand disease risk. Currently, she is leading an effort to improve understanding of the genomic and metabolic mechanisms contributing to prostate cancer risk in men from diverse populations as well as improving the utility of polygenic risk scores and rare genetic variants for the prediction of prostate cancer across multi-ancestry patient populations.This research is conducted in collaboration with large-scale international collaborations investigating genetic risk of prostate cancer.

Research Interests

Prostate cancer prevention, Health disparities, Genetic risk factors, Molecular biomarkers, Multi-omic integration

Recent Publications (PubMed)

Pre-diagnostic circulating metabolomics and prostate cancer risk: A systematic review and meta-analysis.
(2025 Feb 28)
medRxiv
Fuller H, Agasaro OP, Darst BF

Type 2 diabetes polygenic risk score demonstrates context-dependent effects and associations with type 2 diabetes-related risk factors and complications across diverse populations.
(2025 Feb 20)
medRxiv
Guo B, Cai Y, Kim D, Smit RAJ, Wang Z, Iyer KR, Hilliard AT, Haessler J, Tao R, Broadaway KA, Wang Y, Pozdeyev N, Stæger FF, Yang C, Vanderwerff B, Patki AD, Stalbow L, Lin M, Rafaels N, Shortt J, Wiley L, Stanislawski M, Pattee J, Davis L, Straub PS, Shuey MM, Cox NJ, Lee NR, Jørgensen ME, Bjerregaard P, Larsen C, Hansen T, Moltke I, Meigs JB, Stram DO, Yin X, Zhou X, Chang KM, Clarke SL, Guarischi-Sousa R, Lankester J, Tsao PS, Buyske S, Graff M, Raffield LM, Sun Q, Wilkens LR, Carlson CS, Easton CB, Liu S, Manson JE, Marchand LL, Haiman CA, Mohlke KL, Gordon-Larsen P, Albrechtsen A, Boehnke M, Rich SS, Manichaikul A, Rotter JI, Yousri NA, Irvin RM, biobank at the Colorado Center for Personalized Medicine, VA Million Veteran Program, Population Architecture using Genomics and Epidemiology (PAGE) study, Gignoux C, North KE, Loos RJF, Assimes TL, Peters U, Kooperberg C, Raghavan S, Highland HM, Darst BF

Genome-wide association study of prostate-specific antigen levels in 392,522 men identifies new loci and improves prediction across ancestry groups.
(2025 Feb)
Nat Genet 57(2): 334-344
Hoffmann TJ, Graff RE, Madduri RK, Rodriguez AA, Cario CL, Feng K, Jiang Y, Wang A, Klein RJ, Pierce BL, Eggener S, Tong L, Blot W, Long J, Goss LB, Darst BF, Rebbeck T, Lachance J, Andrews C, Adebiyi AO, Adusei B, Aisuodionoe-Shadrach OI, Fernandez PW, Jalloh M, Janivara R, Chen WC, Mensah JE, Agalliu I, Berndt SI, Shelley JP, Schaffer K, Machiela MJ, Freedman ND, Huang WY, Li SA, Goodman PJ, Till C, Thompson I, Lilja H, Ranatunga DK, Presti J, Van Den Eeden SK, Chanock SJ, Mosley JD, Conti DV, Haiman CA, Justice AC, Kachuri L, Witte JS

Polygenic Risk Score and Upgrading in Patients With Prostate Cancer Receiving Active Surveillance.
(2025 Feb 1)
JAMA Oncol 11(2): 168-171
Goss LB, Liu M, Zheng Y, Guo B, Conti DV, Haiman CA, Kachuri L, Catalona WJ, Witte JS, Lin DW, Newcomb LF, Darst BF

Identification of proteins associated with type 2 diabetes risk in diverse racial and ethnic populations.
(2024 Dec)
Diabetologia 67(12): 2754-2770
Liu S, Zhu J, Zhong H, Wu C, Xue H, Darst BF, Guo X, Durda P, Tracy RP, Liu Y, Johnson WC, Taylor KD, Manichaikul AW, Goodarzi MO, Gerszten RE, Clish CB, Chen YI, Highland H, Haiman CA, Gignoux CR, Lange L, Conti DV, Raffield LM, Wilkens L, Marchand LL, North KE, Young KL, Loos RJ, Buyske S, Matise T, Peters U, Kooperberg C, Reiner AP, Yu B, Boerwinkle E, Sun Q, Rooney MR, Echouffo-Tcheugui JB, Daviglus ML, Qi Q, Mancuso N, Li C, Deng Y, Manning A, Meigs JB, Rich SS, Rotter JI, Wu L

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