Akram Yazdani, PhD, MSc
- Assistant Professor
Biography
Akram Yazdani, Ph.D., M.Sc., is an Assistant Professor (tenure-track) in the Department of Neurology at McGovern Medical School, UTHealth Houston. She earned her Ph.D. in Machine Learning for Large-Scale Genetics under the guidance of Dr. David Dunson of Duke University. Her interdisciplinary training in mathematics, machine learning, computational thinking, and human genetics enables her to integrate multimodal molecular and clinical data to investigate the biological basis of complex human diseases.
Her research focuses on dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, and cancer by integrating multi-omics and clinical data to investigate disease-specific and shared biological mechanisms, including cardiometabolic mechanisms. A central theme of her research is characterizing molecular interconnectivity within and across biological systems to reveal disease heterogeneity and translate these insights into clinically meaningful patient stratification and precision medicine.
Dr. Yazdani is the principal investigator of multiple externally funded research grants, including those from the American Heart Association. She has also served on grant review panels for the National Institutes of Health and the American Heart Association.
Education
- Doctorate (PhD)
- University of Padova, Italy
- Master of Science (MSc)
- National University of Iran
Publications
1. Gene signatures derived from transcriptomic-causal networks stratified colorectal cancer patients for effective targeted therapy. Communications Medicine. 2025. (First author)
2. Novel treatment-specific causal biomarkers for colorectal cancer by omics integration. NAR Genomics and Bioinformatics. 2025. (First author)
3. Tumor immunogenomic features determine outcomes in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer treated with standard-of-care combinations of bevacizumab and cetuximab. Clinical Cancer Research. 2022 (Co-first author)
4. Sparse estimation in linear dynamic networks using the stable spline horseshoe prior. Automatica. 2022. (Last author)
5. Differential gene regulatory pattern in the human brain from schizophrenia using transcriptomic-causal network, BMC Bioinformatics. 2020. (First author)