Stefan Gräf

Dr. Stefan Gräf serves as Principal Research Associate at the Victor Phillip Dahdaleh Heart & Lung Research Institute within the University of Cambridge's School of Clinical Medicine. His work bridges computational biology and vascular medicine with focus on pulmonary hypertension (PH) and cerebral small vessel disease (CSVD).

Gräf's research centers on computational genomics approaches to analyze population-scale datasets, integrating genetic, multi-omic, imaging, and health records. Key interests include sex-aware genomic analysis, deep learning for regulatory element interpretation, and molecular network characterization of vascular microcirculation. His group develops secure data infrastructure for high-dimensional analyses using frameworks like Hadoop.

His publication portfolio demonstrates consistent focus on PH/CSVD genomics, with recent work exploring sex-specific genetic determinants of right ventricular function (2024) and Bayesian methods for rare variant association (2020). Collaborations span international consortia including PAH-ICON and NIHR BioResource.

Notable research partnerships include:

• BHF UK National Cohort Study for PAH
• NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre
• BHF Cardiovascular Centre of Research Excellence
• University of Cambridge Research Computing Services

Early career highlights include contributions to METABRIC breast cancer reclassification and foundational work with Ensembl/ENCODE at EMBL-EBI. His trajectory shows deliberate shift from basic genomics to clinical translation in vascular medicine.