Palle Duun Rohde

Palle Duun Rohde is an Associate Professor and Head of Research Group at Aalborg University Hospital, working within the Department of Health Science and Technology at The Faculty of Medicine. His research focuses on genomic medicine and precision health, with particular emphasis on quantitative genetic analysis of complex traits and human diseases. He leads multiple research projects related to genetic architecture of diseases, including projects on maternal health, Drosophila research, diabetes, and endometriosis.

Dr. Rohde earned his PhD in quantitative and statistical genetics from the Center for Quantitative Genetics and Genomics at Aarhus University, with his thesis focusing on "Dissecting the genetic variation of schizophrenia and ADHD using an integrative genomic approach." His research profile demonstrates extensive work in developing and implementing strategies for integrating prior biological knowledge across databases, studies, and organisms to understand the biology of multifactorial phenotypes.

Rohde's research interests span across genetics, quantitative genetics, genomic medicine, statistical genetics, complex traits analysis, precision medicine, and Drosophila research. His scientific focus centers on using large-scale biobank data to better understand how genomic scores and other omics-derived scores can aid in precision health by providing information about an individual's genetic risk. He also contributes to software implementation of statistical and genetic models for identifying genetic risk factors and prediction of complex traits, including work with the R package qgg.

His recent publication record (2023-2025) shows a strong emphasis on applying Bayesian statistical methods to complex disease genetics, with particular focus on cardiovascular disease, diabetes, reproductive health, and neurological disorders. His work demonstrates integration of genomic data with other omics layers (particularly proteomics) to improve risk prediction and understand disease mechanisms. The research output reveals a trajectory toward increasingly sophisticated applications of polygenic risk scores and integration of diverse data types for precision medicine applications.

Dr. Rohde is actively involved in multiple research projects including SURVIVE (2023-2026) focusing on maternal health, Integration of the Drosophila melanogaster Microbiome and Transcriptome (2022-2026), Understanding the Genetic Architecture of Common Complex Diseases (2023-2025), BALDER (2021-2023) on diabetes analysis, and FEMaLe (2021-2024) on endometriosis using machine learning. These projects demonstrate his commitment to translating genetic findings into clinical applications through the development of clinical decision support tools.

His work contributes to UN Sustainable Development Goals, particularly in the area of health and well-being. Dr. Rohde maintains an active research program with collaborations across multiple institutions, as evidenced by his co-authorship on numerous publications and his involvement in various research networks. His laboratory work with Drosophila melanogaster provides valuable insights into fundamental genetic mechanisms that can be translated to human health applications.