Faculty

Burcu Darst

Affiliate Assistant Professor, Epidemiology

206-667-1036
bdarst@fredhutch.org

Education

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

Contact

206-667-1036
bdarst@fredhutch.org

Office M4-B873
1100 Fairview Ave N
Seattle, WA 98109
View Website »

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)

The power of TOPMed imputation for the discovery of Latino-enriched rare variants associated with type 2 diabetes.
(2023 May 6)
Diabetologia
Huerta-Chagoya A, Schroeder P, Mandla R, Deutsch AJ, Zhu W, Petty L, Yi X, Cole JB, Udler MS, Dornbos P, Porneala B, DiCorpo D, Liu CT, Li JH, Szczerbiński L, Kaur V, Kim J, Lu Y, Martin A, Eizirik DL, Marchetti P, Marselli L, Chen L, Srinivasan S, Todd J, Flannick J, Gubitosi-Klug R, Levitsky L, Shah R, Kelsey M, Burke B, Dabelea DM, Divers J, Marcovina S, Stalbow L, Loos RJF, Darst BF, Kooperberg C, Raffield LM, Haiman C, Sun Q, McCormick JB, Fisher-Hoch SP, Ordoñez ML, Meigs J, Baier LJ, González-Villalpando C, González-Villalpando ME, Orozco L, García-García L, Moreno-Estrada A, Mexican Biobank, Aguilar-Salinas CA, Tusié T, Dupuis J, Ng MCY, Manning A, Highland HM, Cnop M, Hanson R, Below J, Florez JC, Leong A, Mercader JM

Causal effects on complex traits are similar for common variants across segments of different continental ancestries within admixed individuals.
(2023 Apr)
Nat Genet 55(4): 549-558
Hou K, Ding Y, Xu Z, Wu Y, Bhattacharya A, Mester R, Belbin GM, Buyske S, Conti DV, Darst BF, Fornage M, Gignoux C, Guo X, Haiman C, Kenny EE, Kim M, Kooperberg C, Lange L, Manichaikul A, North KE, Peters U, Rasmussen-Torvik LJ, Rich SS, Rotter JI, Wheeler HE, Wojcik GL, Zhou Y, Sankararaman S, Pasaniuc B

Evidence of Novel Susceptibility Variants for Prostate Cancer and a Multiancestry Polygenic Risk Score Associated with Aggressive Disease in Men of African Ancestry.
(2023 Feb 27)
Eur Urol
Chen F, Madduri RK, Rodriguez AA, Darst BF, Chou A, Sheng X, Wang A, Shen J, Saunders EJ, Rhie SK, Bensen JT, Ingles SA, Kittles RA, Strom SS, Rybicki BA, Nemesure B, Isaacs WB, Stanford JL, Zheng W, Sanderson M, John EM, Park JY, Xu J, Wang Y, Berndt SI, Huff CD, Yeboah ED, Tettey Y, Lachance J, Tang W, Rentsch CT, Cho K, Mcmahon BH, Biritwum RB, Adjei AA, Tay E, Truelove A, Niwa S, Sellers TA, Yamoah K, Murphy AB, Crawford DC, Patel AV, Bush WS, Aldrich MC, Cussenot O, Petrovics G, Cullen J, Neslund-Dudas CM, Stern MC, Kote-Jarai Z, Govindasami K, Cook MB, Chokkalingam AP, Hsing AW, Goodman PJ, Hoffmann TJ, Drake BF, Hu JJ, Keaton JM, Hellwege JN, Clark PE, Jalloh M, Gueye SM, Niang L, Ogunbiyi O, Idowu MO, Popoola O, Adebiyi AO, Aisuodionoe-Shadrach OI, Ajibola HO, Jamda MA, Oluwole OP, Nwegbu M, Adusei B, Mante S, Darkwa-Abrahams A, Mensah JE, Diop H, Van Den Eeden SK, Blanchet P, Fowke JH, Casey G, Hennis AJ, Lubwama A, Thompson IM Jr, Leach R, Easton DF, Preuss MH, Loos RJ, Gundell SM, Wan P, Mohler JL, Fontham ET, Smith GJ, Taylor JA, Srivastava S, Eeles RA, Carpten JD, Kibel AS, Multigner L, Parent MÉ, Menegaux F, Cancel-Tassin G, Klein EA, Andrews C, Rebbeck TR, Brureau L, Ambs S, Edwards TL, Watya S, Chanock SJ, Witte JS, Blot WJ, Michael Gaziano J, Justice AC, Conti DV, Haiman CA

Liver-Specific Polygenic Risk Score Is Associated with Alzheimer's Disease Diagnosis.
(2023)
J Alzheimers Dis 92(2): 395-409
Panyard DJ, Deming YK, Darst BF, Van Hulle CA, Zetterberg H, Blennow K, Kollmorgen G, Suridjan I, Carlsson CM, Johnson SC, Asthana S, Engelman CD, Lu Q

Genetic variants associated with post-traumatic stress symptoms in patients with gynecologic cancer.
(2023 Mar)
Gynecol Oncol 170(): 102-107
Johnson AM, Teoh D, Jewett P, Darst BF, Mattson J, Hoffmann C, Brown K, Makaram A, Keller C, Blaes AH, Everson-Rose SA, Vogel RI

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