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Sumaiya Nazeen

Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Department of Biomedical Informatics, Harvard Medical School

Department of Neurology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital

Dr. Sumaiya Nazeen is a postdoctoral research fellow in the laboratories of Professor Shamil Sunyaev in the Department of Biomedical Informatics at the Harvard Medical School, and Professor Vikram Khurana in the Department of Neurology at the Brigham and Women's Hospital. She is also a remote associate member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Her research focuses on the development of computational and statistical models for the interpretation of genetic foundation of complex human diseases. Computational integration of large-scale functional and comparative genomics datasets can provide insight into the disease-associated sequence variants and their likely molecular roles. Sumaiya’s research aims at designing better tools for furthering such insight. Her current projects include network-based rare variant analysis, patient stratification, biomarker discovery, and therapeutic target identification for complex diseases.

Sumaiya was awarded International Fulbright Science & Technology Fellowship in 2012, and Ludwig Center for Molecular Oncology Graduate Fellowship in 2015 for her research. Sumaiya pursued her bachelor’s degree from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) and graduated summa cum laude receiving both the Chancellor’s award and the Prime Minister’s gold medal. She completed her S.M. and Ph.D. in Computer Science under the supervision of Prof. Bonnie Berger at MIT in 2014 and 2019, respectively. Prior to coming to MIT, she served as a lecturer in the Department of CSE, BUET.

Sumaiya Nazeen

Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Department of Biomedical Informatics, Harvard Medical School

Department of Neurology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital

Dr. Sumaiya Nazeen is a postdoctoral research fellow in the laboratories of Professor Shamil Sunyaev in the Department of Biomedical Informatics at the Harvard Medical School, and Professor Vikram Khurana in the Department of Neurology at the Brigham and Women's Hospital. She is also a remote associate member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Her research focuses on the development of computational and statistical models for the interpretation of genetic foundation of complex human diseases. Computational integration of large-scale functional and comparative genomics datasets can provide insight into the disease-associated sequence variants and their likely molecular roles. Sumaiya’s research aims at designing better tools for furthering such insight. Her current projects include network-based rare variant analysis, patient stratification, biomarker discovery, and therapeutic target identification for complex diseases.

Sumaiya was awarded International Fulbright Science & Technology Fellowship in 2012, and Ludwig Center for Molecular Oncology Graduate Fellowship in 2015 for her research. Sumaiya pursued her bachelor’s degree from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) and graduated summa cum laude receiving both the Chancellor’s award and the Prime Minister’s gold medal. She completed her S.M. and Ph.D. in Computer Science under the supervision of Prof. Bonnie Berger at MIT in 2014 and 2019, respectively. Prior to coming to MIT, she served as a lecturer in the Department of CSE, BUET.

Recent Publications

The missing link between genetic association and regulatory function

Published On 2022 Dec 14

Journal article

The genetic basis of most traits is highly polygenic and dominated by non-coding alleles. It is widely assumed that such alleles exert small regulatory effects on the expression of cis-linked genes. However, despite the availability of gene expression and epigenomic datasets, few variant-to-gene links have emerged. It is unclear whether these sparse results are due to limitations in available data and methods, or to deficiencies in the underlying assumed model. To better distinguish between...


The Parkinson's disease protein alpha-synuclein is a modulator of processing bodies and mRNA stability

Published On 2022 Jun 10

Journal article

Alpha-synuclein (αS) is a conformationally plastic protein that reversibly binds to cellular membranes. It aggregates and is genetically linked to Parkinson's disease (PD). Here, we show that αS directly modulates processing bodies (P-bodies), membraneless organelles that function in mRNA turnover and storage. The N terminus of αS, but not other synucleins, dictates mutually exclusive binding either to cellular membranes or to P-bodies in the cytosol. αS associates with multiple decapping...