Laura Raffield

Laura Raffield, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Genetics at the UNC School of Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research focuses on genetic epidemiology and human genomics, particularly in understudied populations, to understand inherited and environmental risk factors for cardiometabolic diseases, Alzheimer’s disease, and related quantitative traits. She co-leads collaborative efforts such as the Jackson Heart Study Genetics Working Group and the NHLBI TOPMed Multi-Omics working group.

Dr. Raffield’s work emphasizes multi-omics integration (transcriptomic, epigenomic, proteomic, metabolomic) to link genetic variants to molecular function. She has received grants including a U01 from the NIA to study racial disparities in Alzheimer’s disease mechanisms and a subcontract from UTSW Medical Center for proteomic profiling in the Jackson Heart Study.

Her lab actively publishes on topics like polygenic risk scores, clonal hematopoiesis, and inflammation-cardiovascular links. Recent studies include characterizing Duffy-null genotype effects and proteomic associations with cognitive impairment. Key collaborations involve TOPMed, CHARGE, and PAGE consortia.

Dr. Raffield advises students like Micah Hysong (Blood Advances publication) and Madeline Gillman (proteomic trajectory research). Her lab focuses on improving genomic representativeness for precision medicine equity, including leadership in the PRIMED consortium for polygenic risk scores in diverse populations.