Deputy Director of Research at Estonian Genome Center, University of Tartu
Dr. Esko is the Deputy Director of Research at Estonian Genome Center, University of Tartu, which hosts a biobank of 50,000 individuals, which are being actively followed up with major national electronic health repositories. He is also Affiliated Researcher at the Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School and Broad Institute, and Economic Researcher at National Bureau of Economic Research. Dr. Esko is a human geneticist and molecular biologist, and has extensive experience in performing and implementing genetic association studies. His broader scientific interest lies in understanding the genetic architecture of complex human phenotypes, focusing on human stature and levels of gene expression in human tissues to estimate the role of both rare and common genetic variation of phenotypic outcomes through various models of inheritance. Dr. Esko is the co-founder of several large-scale research consortia – eQTLgen, meQTLgen and Ygen – and plays an implemental role in ROHgen and GIANT, the latter has successfully identified close to 1000 DNA sequence variants regulating human anthropometric traits. Dr. Esko expertise in large-scale genetic studies, including the state-of-the-art knowledge in strategies prioritizing causal sequence variants and genes in trait associated genomic loci.