Carlos Cruchaga, Ph.D.

Carlos CRUCHAGA, Ph.D., is a human genomicist with expertise in multiomics, informatics, and neurodegeneration. He completed his PH.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in 2005 at University of Navarra (Spain). During his first postdoc with Dr. Pastor he conducted statistical human genetics studies focused on Alzheimer’s (AD) and Parkinson disease (PD). He then moved to Dr. Goate Lab to complete his training in quantitative human genomics.

Dr. Cruchaga established his laboratory at Washington University in 2011, studying the genetic architecture of neurodegenerative diseases. In 2019, he became the scientific advisor of the McDonnell Genome Institute (MGI) at Washington University and funding director of the NeuroGenomics and Informatics center. He is also the Knight-ADRC genetics and the DIAN genetics core Leader and the Director of Hope Center DNA and RNA core. His laboratory has pioneered the use of next-generation sequencing technology to identify functional variants implicated on AD and PD.

Additionally, Dr. Cruchaga used RNA-seq data from human brain tissue and network analyses in order to identify novel pathways and pathogenic implicated on neurodegenerative diseases. His interests are focused in using human genomic and other omic data (proteomic, metabolomics, lipidomics) to identify and understand the biology of neurodegenerative diseases, create novel molecular prediction models and druggable targets. Multi-level data integration is already facilitating precision medicine and advancing medicine at the individual patient level. This will be instrumental to the identification of novel disease- associated genes, linking gene variants to human phenotypes, to predict biomarker validity or drug response. These approaches will be essential not only for precision medicine but also precision treatment timing. In summary, the mission of Cruchaga lab is to leverage genetics, omics and functional genomics studies in neurodegeneration and diseases of the CNS and translate those into improvements in human health through better understanding of the molecular underpinnings of disease.