Po-Ru Loh, PhD
Po-Ru Loh, PhD, of the Division of Genetics, won a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director’s New Innovator Award for his project “Revealing Somatic Genome Alterations and Their Clinical Sequelae: Ultrasensitive Computational Detection of Mosaic Structural Variants,” and a 2018 Glenn Foundation for Medical Research and American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR) Grant for his project “Understanding the Etiology and Effects of Age-related Clonal Hematopoiesis.”
Part of the NIH’s High-Risk, High-Reward Research Program, the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award supports unusually innovative research from early-career investigators who are within 10 years of their final degree or clinical residency. The Glenn Foundation for Medical Research and AFAR Grant provides funding for junior faculty conducting research on the biology of aging.
Somatic mutation is the process by which cells in the body undergo DNA alterations. Loh’s NIH-funded project focuses on developing statistical tools that enable detection of such alterations in these cells and using those tools to understand how the mutations affect diseases of the brain and blood, as well as cancer progression.
Clonal hematopoiesis is the process by which genetic mutations occur and proliferate in our blood as we age. Loh’s Glenn Foundation and AFAR-funded project will search for patterns in genetic data obtained from blood samples to find clues about how these mutations are linked to aging and what effect they have on a person’s future health.
NIH is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and serves as the country’s largest medical research agency. The Glenn Foundation for Medical Research and AFAR work to advance the knowledge of aging and mechanisms of age-related diseases through grants and awards.
