Eleonora Porcu – Laureate of the 2019 SIB Early Career Bioinformatician Award
Eleonora received the award for her project on the development of a trascriptome-wide Mendelian Randomization approach (called TWMR) to unravel causal genes for complex human traits
Today, Eleonora is a postdoc in the Statistical Genetics Group led by Zoltan Kutalik at the University of Lausanne and she works on statistical methods integrating omics and GWAS data to elucidate the biological mechanisms of complex traits. To learn more about the Eleonora’s project, have a look at her group's page, read her publication in Nature Communications and follow @ElePorcu on Twitter.
The SIB Bioinformatics Awards will be presented for the 11th time, providing a great occasion to reach out to past laureates and ask them where they are now in their career. In this interview, we met with Eleonora Porcu, Laureate of the 2019 SIB Early Career Bioinformatician Award.
At which point of your career were you when you received the SIB Award? How did it feel? What was the key interest of your research at this time point?
I received the SIB award last year and I still remember my happiness when I was notified, it was totally unexpected! People who were in Basel at the ceremony can testify my excitement, it was a huge honour for me! As I received the award only last year, it’s early to say what it will enable me to do but I can say that it has given me a lot of confidence. I was awarded for my project focused on the development of a trascriptome-wide Mendelian Randomization approach (called TWMR) to unravel causal genes for complex human traits.
What are your current research interests?
Cuurently I’m developing a reverse TWMR (revTWMR) combining GWAS results with trans- and cis- eQTL data to disentangle the causes and consequences of gene expression on complex traits.
In your personal opinion, what is the single most fascinating discovery made possible by bioinformatics?
As I work on human genetic data, for me the most fascinating discovery was made by the Human Genome Project. It has made it possible to create a catalogue of human genetic variations which in turn can be used for association studies relating genetic variations to diseases. My research is based on that.
What do you like to do in your free time?
I love sports. In my free time I mostly play padel and enjoy my inline skates!
Any words for the future generation of bioinformaticians?
Think big and be curious! There are still many questions to be answered and a huge amount of data to explore in different ways. Life science is a fascinating world and you can make amazing discoveries sitting in front of your laptop!