Debora Sobreira

Position Titles

Assistant Professor, Biological Chemistry
Assistant Professor, Human Genetics

Biography

Research Description

Dr. Débora Sobreira’s research is focused on understanding the consequences of genetic variation on molecular, cellular and organismal traits using a comprehensive set of genetic, molecular, and developmental biology methods. In that context, she has successfully pursued noncoding GWAS hits, establishing experimental strategies for the identification of long-range regulatory elements and the demonstration that genetic variation within these regulatory units often underlies the association signals emerging from GWAS. Using various experimental platforms ranging from cell culture to whole-systems in vivo, she has developed and standardized assays to test for a variety of questions involving the genetic architecture of complex traits and the functional consequences of noncoding variation in loci associated with diseases such as obesity and diabetes. These studies have resulted in a number of fundamental discoveries that challenged previous paradigms and paved the way for the functional follow-up of genetic associations. Her lab will open in January 2023.