Elizabeth Theusch
Assistant Researcher
Pediatrics
School of Medicine
As a computational biologist with training in human genetics and molecular biology, my recent projects have focused on studying statin pharmacogenomics and transcriptomics, cholesterol metabolism, and cardiovascular disease. I am especially passionate about studying sex and genetic ancestry differences in disease risk, metabolism, and drug response.
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In addition to my involvement in ongoing collaborative projects led by other investigators, I am leading my own research projects focused on the impact of menopause on gene regulation and cardiometabolic disease risk factors.
Awards
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- Butler-Williams Scholar, National Institute on Aging, 2022
- Postdoctoral Fellowship (one-year), American Heart Association, 2015-2016
- Featured Investigator (June), Pharmacogenomics Research Network, 2015
- Postdoctoral Fellowship, American Heart Association, 2012-2014
- Graduate Research Fellowship, National Science Foundation, 2006-2009
- Hilldale Undergraduate Research Award, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2004
Education & Training
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- Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Champion Training University of California, San Francisco 2022
- Postdoctoral Computational Biology Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute (CHORI) 2016
- Ph.D. Biomedical Sciences University of California, San Francisco 2010
- Certificate Computer Programming: C++ City College of San Francisco 2009
- B.S. Genetics and Biochemistry University of Wisconsin-Madison 2005
Interests
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- statin pharmacogenomics
- sexual dimorphism
- transcriptomics
- computational biology
- human genetics
- cardiovascular disease
- cholesterol metabolism
- genetic ancestry
- menopause
Grants and Projects
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- Changes in cardiometabolic tissue gene regulation and omics profiles with menopause, NIH, 2024-2026
- Genetic Regulation of Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease, NIH, 2021-2025
- Transcriptomic signatures of menopause across human tissues, NIH, 2023-2025
- Transcriptomic and cardiometabolic changes after mouse ovarian follicle depletion, UCSF, 2023-2024
- iPSCs as a screening tool to predict risk of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, CIRM, 2021-2023
- Transcriptomic signatures of menopause across human tissues, NIH, 2022-2023
- Pharmacogenomics of Statin Therapy, NIH, 2015-2021
- Functional Dissection of the 19p13.11 Haplotype, NIH, 2016-2017
- Genetic variation influencing in vitro statin-induced changes in gene expression and in vivo statin response, AHA Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2015-2016
- Statin-induced changes in gene transcript structure assessed by RNA-Seq, AHA Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2012-2014
Publications (41)
Top publication keywords:
Proprotein ConvertasesChitinasesCholesterolGenome-Wide Association StudyLipid MetabolismCholesterol, LDLSerine EndopeptidasesSerpinsLymphocytesHydroxymethylglutaryl-CoA Reductase InhibitorsDyslipidemiasSimvastatinPitch DiscriminationPolymorphism, Single NucleotidePharmacogenomic Variants
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Participant-derived cell line transcriptomic analyses and mouse studies reveal a role for ZNF335 in plasma cholesterol statin response.
Genome medicine 2024 Theusch E, Ting FY, Qin Y, Stevens K, Naidoo D, King SM, Yang NV, Orr J, Han BY, Cyster JG, Chen YI, Rotter JI, Krauss RM, Medina MW -
Inclusion through part-time science.
Science (New York, N.Y.) 2021 Theusch E -
Genetic variants modulate gene expression statin response in human lymphoblastoid cell lines.
BMC genomics 2020 Theusch E, Chen YI, Rotter JI, Krauss RM, Medina MW -
Statin-induced expression change of INSIG1 in lymphoblastoid cell lines correlates with plasma triglyceride statin response in a sex-specific manner.
The pharmacogenomics journal 2016 Theusch E, Kim K, Stevens K, Smith JD, Chen YI, Rotter JI, Nickerson DA, Medina MW -
Ancestry and other genetic associations with plasma PCSK9 response to simvastatin.
Pharmacogenetics and genomics 2014 Theusch E, Medina MW, Rotter JI, Krauss RM
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MIR192 upregulates GLP-1 receptor and improves statin-induced impairment of insulin secretion
bioRxiv 2025 Kuang YL, Locatelli CAA, Qin Y, Zhang Y, Theusch E, Muñoz-Howell A, Sanchez G, Lu M, Nguyen MA, Yalamanchili T, Wang X, Nalula G, Mattis AN, Oni-Orisan A, Iribarren C, Krauss RM, Mulvihill EE, Medina … -
Predicting Metabolic Dysfunction Associated Steatotic Liver Disease Risk Using Patient-Derived Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells.
bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology 2025 Qin Y, Chhetri P, Theusch E, Lim G, Teker S, Kuang YL, Aziziraftar SK, Mehraban MH, Munoz-Howell A, Saxena V, Le Guillou D, Mattis AN, Maher JJ, Medina MW -
GWAS of CRP response to statins further supports the role of APOE in statin response: A GIST consortium study.
Pharmacological research 2025 Magavern EF, Deshmukh H, Asselin G, Theusch E, Trompet S, Li X, Noordam R, Chen YI, Seeman TE, Taylor KD, Post WS, Tardif JC, Paul DS, Benjamin EJ, Heard-Costa NL, Vasan RS, Rotter JI, Krauss RM, … -
Loss of TMEM55B modulates lipid metabolism through dysregulated lipophagy and mitochondrial function
bioRxiv 2024 Qin Y, Teker S, La Cunza N, Theusch E, Yang N, Venkatesan L, Su J, Krauss RM, Lakkaraju A, Mattis AN, Medina MW -
TOMM40 regulates hepatocellular and plasma lipid metabolism via an LXR-dependent pathway.
Molecular metabolism 2024 Yang NV, Chao JY, Garton KA, Tran T, King SM, Orr J, Oei JH, Crawford A, Kang M, Zalpuri R, Jorgens DM, Konchadi P, Chorba JS, Theusch E, Krauss RM -
X chromosome dosage drives statin-induced dysglycemia and mitochondrial dysfunction.
Nature communications 2024 Zhang P, Munier JJ, Wiese CB, Vergnes L, Link JC, Abbasi F, Ronquillo E, Scheker K, Muñoz A, Kuang YL, Theusch E, Lu M, Sanchez G, Oni-Orisan A, Iribarren C, McPhaul MJ, Nomura DK, Knowles JW, Krauss … -
TOMM40 and TOMM22 of the Translocase Outer Mitochondrial Membrane Complex rescue statin-impaired mitochondrial dynamics, morphology, and mitophagy in skeletal myotubes.
bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology 2023 Yang NV, Rogers S, Guerra R, Pagliarini DJ, Theusch E, Krauss RM -
Implicating genes, pleiotropy, and sexual dimorphism at blood lipid loci through multi-ancestry meta-analysis.
Genome biology 2022 Kanoni S, Graham SE, Wang Y, Surakka I, Ramdas S, Zhu X, Clarke SL, Bhatti KF, Vedantam S, Winkler TW, Locke AE, Marouli E, Zajac GJM, Wu KH, Ntalla I, Hui Q, Klarin D, Hilliard AT, Wang Z, Xue C, … -
A saturated map of common genetic variants associated with human height.
Nature 2022 Yengo L, Vedantam S, Marouli E, Sidorenko J, Bartell E, Sakaue S, Graff M, Eliasen AU, Jiang Y, Raghavan S, Miao J, Arias JD, Graham SE, Mukamel RE, Spracklen CN, Yin X, Chen SH, Ferreira T, Highland … -
A multi-layer functional genomic analysis to understand noncoding genetic variation in lipids.
American journal of human genetics 2022 Ramdas S, Judd J, Graham SE, Kanoni S, Wang Y, Surakka I, Wenz B, Clarke SL, Chesi A, Wells A, Bhatti KF, Vedantam S, Winkler TW, Locke AE, Marouli E, Zajac GJM, Wu KH, Ntalla I, Hui Q, Klarin D, … -
Undifferentiated Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells as a Genetic Model for Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease.
Cellular and molecular gastroenterology and hepatology 2022 Muñoz A, Theusch E, Kuang YL, Nalula G, Peaslee C, Dorlhiac G, Landry MP, Streets A, Krauss RM, Iribarren C, Mattis AN, Medina MW -
Meta-GWAS of PCSK9 levels detects two novel loci at APOB and TM6SF2.
Human molecular genetics 2022 Pott J, Gådin JR, Theusch E, Kleber ME, Delgado GE, Kirsten H, Hauck SM, Burkhardt R, Scharnagl H, Krauss RM, Loeffler M, März W, Thiery J, Silveira A, Van't Hooft FM, Scholz M -
The Pharmacogenetics of Statin Therapy on Clinical Events: No Evidence that Genetic Variation Affects Statin Response on Myocardial Infarction.
Frontiers in pharmacology 2022 Trompet S, Postmus I, Warren HR, Noordam R, Smit RAJ, Theusch E, Li X, Arsenault B, Chasman DI, Hitman GA, Munroe PB, Rotter JI, Psaty BM, Caulfield MJ, Krauss RM, Cupples AL, Jukema WJ -
The power of genetic diversity in genome-wide association studies of lipids.
Nature 2021 Graham SE, Clarke SL, Wu KH, Kanoni S, Zajac GJM, Ramdas S, Surakka I, Ntalla I, Vedantam S, Winkler TW, Locke AE, Marouli E, Hwang MY, Han S, Narita A, Choudhury A, Bentley AR, Ekoru K, Verma A, … -
A unified framework identifies new links between plasma lipids and diseases from electronic medical records across large-scale cohorts.
Nature genetics 2021 Veturi Y, Lucas A, Bradford Y, Hui D, Dudek S, Theusch E, Verma A, Miller JE, Kullo I, Hakonarson H, Sleiman P, Schaid D, Stein CM, Edwards DRV, Feng Q, Wei WQ, Medina MW, Krauss RM, Hoffmann TJ, … -
Identifying genetic modulators of statin response using subject-derived lymphoblastoid cell lines.
Pharmacogenomics 2021 Kuang YL, Theusch E, M Krauss R, W Medina M -
A multi-ethnic genome-wide association study implicates collagen matrix integrity and cell differentiation pathways in keratoconus.
Communications biology 2021 Hardcastle AJ, Liskova P, Bykhovskaya Y, McComish BJ, Davidson AE, Inglehearn CF, Li X, Choquet H, Habeeb M, Lucas SEM, Sahebjada S, Pontikos N, Lopez KER, Khawaja AP, Ali M, Dudakova L, Skalicka P, … -
Statin-induced LDL cholesterol response and type 2 diabetes: a bidirectional two-sample Mendelian randomization study.
The pharmacogenomics journal 2019 Smit RAJ, Trompet S, Leong A, Goodarzi MO, Postmus I, Warren H, Theusch E, Barnes MR, Arsenault BJ, Li X, Feng Q, Chasman DI, Cupples LA, Hitman GA, Krauss RM, Psaty BM, Rotter JI, Cessie SL, Stein CM… -
GeneFishing to reconstruct context specific portraits of biological processes.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 2019 Liu K, Theusch E, Zhou Y, Ashuach T, Dose AC, Bickel PJ, Medina MW, Huang H -
ZNF542P is a pseudogene associated with LDL response to simvastatin treatment.
Scientific reports 2018 Kim K, Theusch E, Kuang YL, Dose A, Mitchel K, Cubitt C, Chen YI, Krauss RM, Medina MW -
A large electronic-health-record-based genome-wide study of serum lipids.
Nature genetics 2018 Hoffmann TJ, Theusch E, Haldar T, Ranatunga DK, Jorgenson E, Medina MW, Kvale MN, Kwok PY, Schaefer C, Krauss RM, Iribarren C, Risch N -
Generalized correlation measure using count statistics for gene expression data with ordered samples.
Bioinformatics (Oxford, England) 2018 Wang YXR, Liu K, Theusch E, Rotter JI, Medina MW, Waterman MS, Huang H, Stegle O -
Human genetic variation in VAC14 regulates Salmonella invasion and typhoid fever through modulation of cholesterol.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 2017 Alvarez MI, Glover LC, Luo P, Wang L, Theusch E, Oehlers SH, Walton EM, Tram TTB, Kuang YL, Rotter JI, McClean CM, Chinh NT, Medina MW, Tobin DM, Dunstan SJ, Ko DC -
The genetics of blood pressure regulation and its target organs from association studies in 342,415 individuals.
Nature genetics 2016 Ehret GB, Ferreira T, Chasman DI, Jackson AU, Schmidt EM, Johnson T, Thorleifsson G, Luan J, Donnelly LA, Kanoni S, Petersen AK, Pihur V, Strawbridge RJ, Shungin D, Hughes MF, Meirelles O, Kaakinen M,… -
SUGP1 is a novel regulator of cholesterol metabolism.
Human molecular genetics 2016 Kim MJ, Yu CY, Theusch E, Naidoo D, Stevens K, Kuang YL, Schuetz E, Chaudhry AS, Medina MW -
RP1-13D10.2 Is a Novel Modulator of Statin-Induced Changes in Cholesterol.
Circulation. Cardiovascular genetics 2016 Mitchel K, Theusch E, Cubitt C, Dosé AC, Stevens K, Naidoo D, Medina MW -
Transcriptomic variation of pharmacogenes in multiple human tissues and lymphoblastoid cell lines.
The pharmacogenomics journal 2016 Chhibber A, French CE, Yee SW, Gamazon ER, Theusch E, Qin X, Webb A, Papp AC, Wang A, Simmons CQ, Konkashbaev A, Chaudhry AS, Mitchel K, Stryke D, Ferrin TE, Weiss ST, Kroetz DL, Sadee W, Nickerson DA… -
Individual and Combined Associations of Genetic Variants in CYP3A4, CYP3A5, and SLCO1B1 With Simvastatin and Simvastatin Acid Plasma Concentrations.
Journal of cardiovascular pharmacology 2015 Luzum JA, Theusch E, Taylor KD, Wang A, Sadee W, Binkley PF, Krauss RM, Medina MW, Kitzmiller JP -
Prediction of LDL cholesterol response to statin using transcriptomic and genetic variation.
Genome biology 2014 Kim K, Bolotin E, Theusch E, Huang H, Medina MW, Krauss RM -
Transmembrane protein 55B is a novel regulator of cellular cholesterol metabolism.
Arteriosclerosis, thrombosis, and vascular biology 2014 Medina MW, Bauzon F, Naidoo D, Theusch E, Stevens K, Schilde J, Schubert C, Mangravite LM, Rudel LL, Temel RE, Runz H, Krauss RM -
HNRNPA1 regulates HMGCR alternative splicing and modulates cellular cholesterol metabolism.
Human molecular genetics 2013 Yu CY, Theusch E, Lo K, Mangravite LM, Naidoo D, Kutilova M, Medina MW -
RHOA is a modulator of the cholesterol-lowering effects of statin.
PLoS genetics 2012 Medina MW, Theusch E, Naidoo D, Bauzon F, Stevens K, Mangravite LM, Kuang YL, Krauss RM -
Absolute pitch twin study and segregation analysis.
Twin research and human genetics : the official journal of the International Society for Twin Studies 2011 Theusch E, Gitschier J -
Genome-wide study of families with absolute pitch reveals linkage to 8q24.21 and locus heterogeneity.
American journal of human genetics 2009 Theusch E, Basu A, Gitschier J -
Separate pathways of RNA recruitment lead to the compartmentalization of the zebrafish germ plasm.
Developmental biology 2006 Theusch EV, Brown KJ, Pelegri F -
Transplantation of neural progenitor cells into the developing retina of the Brazilian opossum: an in vivo system for studying stem/progenitor cell plasticity.
Developmental neuroscience 2004 Sakaguchi DS, Van Hoffelen SJ, Theusch E, Parker E, Orasky J, Harper MM, Benediktsson A, Young MJ