Dr. Nicholas Mancuso is interested in integrating molecular data with large-scale genetics studies to identify risk genes for complex traits and diseases in diverse populations. Specifically, his research aims to develop novel computational and statistical approaches to understand the genetic etiology of complex diseases. This includes integrating molecular phenotypes (e.g., mRNA abundance, protein abundance) with large-scale genome-wide association studies, characterizing the genetic architecture of complex disease (e.g., rare vs common variation), and quantifying the role of selection in shaping the effect-size distribution for alleles.

His current research project aims to a) characterize the molecular quantitative trait loci landscape of DNA methylation, transcriptomic, proteomic, and metabolomic profiles measured in prostate tissue from men of African and European ancestry, b) identify molecular risk factors for prostate cancer (PCa) within and across ancestries by imputing multi-omics into large-scale PCa GWAS studies, and c) characterize prostate regulatory processes underlying heterogeneity of PCa risk within and across ancestries by integrating PCa polygenic risk scores into multi-omics reference panels.