Current members

Krista Freimann

Krista is a post-doctoral fellow at the Institute of Computer Science. Her project is focussed on identifying cell-type-specific trans-eQTLs in large datasets comprising of diverse immune cells. [Google Scholar]

Ralf Tambets

Ralf is a PhD student at the Institute of Computer Science. His current work focusses on detecting shared genetic signals across multiple traits using fine-mapping, colocalisation and Mendelian randomisation.

Peep Kolberg

Peep is a PhD student at the Institute of Computer Science. He is working on developing robust and scalable workflows to perform eQTL analysis in millions of single cells from thousands of individuals.

Kristiina Kuningas

Kristiina obtained her Master’s degree from the Institute of Computer Science and is currently a Data Analyst in the group. Kristiina works on uniform processing and quality control of large-scale chromatin QTL datasets.

Dzvenymyra-Marta (Dzvinka) Yarish

Dzvinka is a Master’s student and a Machine Learing specialist in the group. She is interested in developing and using machine learing models to predict the effect of genetic variants on molecular traits such as chromatin accesibility, gene expression and splicing. [Google Scholar]

Kaur Alasoo

Kaur is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Computer Science, University of Tartu. He is interested in using diverse molecular datasets and computational models to decipher the mechanisms underlying complex traits and diseases. He is also quite proficient in applying for access to genomic datasets using dbGaP, EGA, Synapse, eDAM and other similar systems. Kaur completed his PhD in 2017 with Daniel Gaffney at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, where he studied the regulation of gene expression in macrophage immune response (thesis). In 2020, he received the Young IT Scientist Award from the President of Estonia. Since 2022, he is member of the Estonian Young Academy of Sciences.

Alumni

Nurlan Kerimov (2018-2023)

Nurlan was a PhD student at the Institute of Computer Science. He focussed on developing robust and portable workflows for the eQTL Catalogue project. [Google Scholar]

Ida Rahu (2022-2023)

Ida Rahu was a short-term post-doctoral fellow in the group. She studied genetic varaints regulating plasma metabolite levels in the Estonian Biobank and the UK Biobank. She is the main author of our reGSusie GWAS analysis and fine mapping workflow that scales to hundreds of thousands of samples.

Kateryna Peikova (2020)

Kateryna was a MSc student at the Institute of Computer Science. Her thesis focuses characterizing the patterens of eQTL sharing among the tissues and cell types present in the eQTL Catalogue.

Evelin Aasna (2018-2019)

In her bacherlor’s thesis, Evelin used genetic approaches to study how factors regulating chromatin accessibility contribute to the control of RNA splicing.