Faculty

Nicholas Smith

Professor, Epidemiology

206-221-1279

Education

PhD Epidemiology, University of Washington, 1997
MPH Epidemiology/Biostatistics, University of California (Berkeley), 1993
BA Social Sciences, University of California (Irvine), 1987

Contact

206-221-1279

Box 351619
Department of Epidemiology
Hans Rosling Center for Population Health, 886
Seattle, WA 98195
View Website »

Bio

Dr. Smith is Professor of Epidemiology and Director of the VA Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center (ERIC) at the VA Puget Sound Health Care System

Research Areas

Research Interests

My research interests within cardiovascular epidemiologic research are wide and include investigations of inherited and acquired risk factors for arterial and venous thrombosis, diabetes, and heart failure. A major focus of my research in the past 15 years has been on genetic association studies, first conducted in the local setting and now being orchestrated internationally. Early work was conducted at Group Health Research Institute and involved a series of case-controls studies conducted with colleagues at the University of Washington. These studies addressed primarily pharmaco and pharmaco-genetic epidemiologic questions related to myocardial infarctions, stroke, and venous thrombosis. More recently, I have been involved in 2 large international genetics consortia, the Cohorts of Heart and Aging Genetic Epidemiology (CHARGE) Consortium and the International Network of Venous Thrombosis (INVENT) Consortium. In CHARGE, I co-convene 2 working groups, the CHARGE Hemostasis Working Group and the CHARGE Heart Failure Working Group. I am also a co-convener of the International Network on Venous Thrombosis (INVENT) consortium. For these consortia, I provide leadership in the conduct of intermediate and clinical phenotype association studies using genome-wide and exome-wide markers and exome sequencing. I am also the director of the Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center (ERIC), a program of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Cooperative Studies Program (CSP). The VA CSP is intimately involved in the VA’s Million Veteran Program (MVP), which is collecting DNA, lifestyle questionnaires from over a 1,000,000 Veterans who use the Veterans Health Administration for their care.

Recent Publications (PubMed)

Novel Plasma Proteomic Markers and Risk of Venous Thromboembolism.
(2026 Feb 16)
Circulation
Tang W, Li A, Austin TR, Brækkan SK, Nøst TH, Li X, Deo R, Dubin R, Ganz P, Guan W, Cao R, Hansen JB, Hveem K, Hoogeveen RC, Jonasson C, Rotter JI, Matsushita K, Liu G, Pankow JS, Pankratz N, Psaty BM, Taylor KD, Thibord F, Boerwinkle E, Smith NL, Cushman M, Folsom AR
RAB3GAP2 is a regulator of skeletal muscle endothelial cell proliferation and associated with capillary-to-fiber ratio.
(2026 Feb 24)
Cell Rep 45(2): 116961
Ström K, Oskolkov N, Karaderi T, Kalamajski S, Mir BA, Ekström O, Miyamoto-Mikami E, Ladenvall C, Kakulidis E, Reid S, Dutius Andersson AM, Kryvokhyzha D, Zhang E, Fadista J, Thangam M, Iemitsu M, Semenova EA, Larin AK, Sultanov RI, Babalyan KA, Zhelankin AV, Kulemin NA, Generozov EV, Hultström M, Frithiof R, Zeberg H, Lipcsey M, Larsson A, Mahajan A, Ahlqvist E, Prasad RB, Prüfer K, CHARGE Hemostasis Working Group, Sabater-Lleal M, Smith NL, Dehghan A, Lind L, McGawley K, Morris AP, Andersson JPA, Lehtovirta M, Szczerbiński Ł, Kretowski A, Ahmetov II, Wang G, Pitsiladis Y, Santos-Lozano A, Lucia A, Fuku N, Holmberg HC, Gomez MF, Eriksson KF, Pietras K, Lindgren CM, Franks PW, Hansson O
RAB5C Increases Endothelial Release of VWF by Regulating Vesicle Trafficking.
(2026 Mar)
Arterioscler Thromb Vasc Biol 46(3): e323000
Reventun P, Toledano-Sanz P, Delgado-Marin M, Viskadourou M, Foster DB, de Vries PS, Sabater-Lleal M, Alcharani N, Gonzalez-Cucharero C, Osburn WO, Morrison AC, Wolberg AS, Smith NL, Arvanitis M, Cohorts for Heart and Aging in Genomic Epidemiology Hemostasis Working Group, Lowenstein CJ
CD39 polymorphism enables lung thrombosis in sickle cell disease.
(2026 Jan 14)
Nat Commun 17(1): 1693
Brzoska T, Kaminski TW, Katoch O, Menchikova EV, Alagbe AE, Tashbook SE, Tofovic SP, Jonassaint JC, St Croix CM, Watkins SC, Howe S, Field JJ, Seyerle AA, Pradhan-Sundd T, Laurie C, Pankratz ND, Smith NL, Goode EL, Pankow JS, Kooperberg C, Kato GJ, Zhang Y, Novelli EM, Gladwin MT, Jackson EK, Nouraie SM, Sundd P
Fibrinogen-associated plasma metabolites and implications for coagulation, inflammation, and vascular diseases.
(2026 Jan 8)
J Thromb Haemost
Nicholas JC, Alkis T, Bis JC, Boerwinkle E, Brody JA, Clish CB, de Vries PS, Gao Y, Gerzsten RE, Guo X, Johnson AD, Larson MG, Lemaitre RN, Psaty BM, Vasan RS, Reiner AP, Rich SS, Rodriguez B, Rong J, Rotter JI, Simino J, Smith NL, Wilson J, Yao J, Morrison AC, Yu B, Raffield LM
Show complete publication list