Dr Stavroula Kanoni, PhD, PGCAP, FHEA

Profile

ORCID iD: 0000-0002-1691-9615

Dr Stavroula Kanoni is a Reader (Associate Professor) in Nutrigenetics and Cardiovascular Health, with over 10 years’ experience in the genetics of cardiovascular and cardiometabolic diseases and the lifestyle/diet interplay. She graduated in 2003 from the Harokopio University of Athens, Greece, with a B.Sc. in Science of Nutrition and Dietetics, followed by an M.Sc. in Clinical Dietetics (2006). She pursued her research in the field of nutrigenetics, investigating interactions among genes, nutrition and lifestyle characteristics in an elderly Greek cohort (under the ZINCAGE FP6 EU Grant) and was awarded a PhD in Nutrigenetics in 2010, from the Department of Nutrition and Dietetics of Harokopio University of Athens, Greece. She joined the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in 2010 as a post-doctoral research fellow, in the group of genetics of complex traits in humans, where she gained expertise on statistical genetics with a focus on cardiovascular genetics. In September 2013, Dr Kanoni joined the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry at Queen Mary University of London, as a senior statistical geneticist in the William Harvey Research Institute. In February 2019, she was appointed a Lecturer in Nutrigenetics and Cardiovascular Health and in September 2022 she was promoted to a Reader.

Dr Stavroula Kanoni has long experience in leading and contributing to high-impact projects within international consortia. Her work is reflected in more than 120 peer-reviewed publications, and she has an H-index of 66.

Dr Stavroula Kanoni is the Deputy Academic Lead of the Environment and Health Multidisciplinary Theme in the School of Medicine and Dentistry of Queen Mary University of London, aiming to nurture cross-faculty initiatives and forge external partnerships that help develop innovative and holistic approaches to enable effective management of chronic diseases, in line with the University’s 2030 strategy. To achieve that, the Theme’s leadership is i) actively pursuing large project grant applications to support high quality multidisciplinary research relevant to the theme, ii) expanding the educational offering and developing new courses for environment and health and iii) developing a brand for the theme by engaging external stakeholders, policy makers, public bodies and the industry.

Dr Stavroula Kanoni has a Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice (PGCAP) and is an HEA (Higher Education Academy) Fellow. She contibutes to many courses of the School of Medicine and Dentistry and she is also leading the design and establishment of new educational offerings for the University.

Dr Stavroula Kanoni is on the Editorial Section Board for “Nutrigenetics and Nutrigenomics” of the Nutrients Journal (IF 6.7) and is also the General Secretary of the Santorini Conferences Association – For Research Innovation in Health (https://www.santoriniconference.org/), organising the series of international conferences on Systems Medicine, Personalised Health and Therapy.

Research

Group members

• Trupti Kolvekar (BHF PhD student)
• Hao-Chuan Liu (PhD student)
• PDRA in Statistical Genetics (TBC)

Summary

Dr Stavroula Kanoni is interested in elucidating disease-related mechanisms in multi-ancestry cohorts and ethnic diverse populations and developing innovative therapeutic strategies, to alleviate or modulate the impact of environment on health. Her research aspires to incorporate multi-disciplinary approaches, sophisticated analytical methods and multi-modal data (genetic, epigenetic, biochemical, metabolomics, environmental and lifestyle data), as a new model for improved diagnosis and treatment of complex diseases in the era of precision medicine. She has over 10 years’ experience in the genetics of cardiovascular and cardiometabolic diseases and the lifestyle/diet interplay and her research portfolio extend to a range of projects, that could be summarized as follows:

• Leading (PI) a project grant from the LEAP Collaborate to Innovate Fund, entitled “AI tool for cardiovascular risk using polygenic and transcriptomic profiling”.
• Leading the genetic analysis and Polygenic Risk Scores (PRS) modelling for coronary artery disease and lipids in the Genes and Health cohort.
• Leading and contributing to several projects within the CARDIoGRAMPlusC4D consortium, investigating the genetic architecture of CAD in multi-ancestry populations.
• Leading and contributing to several projects within the GLGC consortium, investigating the genetically determined variability in blood lipid levels in multi-ancestry populations.
• Leading (PI) the contribution of the Genes and Health Study to the INTERVENE international and interdisciplinary consortium (EU Horizon 2020), performing AI-facilitated analyses of complex medical data to develop genetic risk scores for a range of diseases across a large number of multi-ancestry Biobanks.
• Investigating the genetic predisposition and risk factors for NAFLD, including nutriomics and lifestyle, as a supervisor of a BHF PhD project.
• Investigating the efficacy of Mastiha in the treatment of NAFLD/NASH and identifying potential nutrigenetic modulations on inflammation markers, in the context of a multidisciplinary clinical trial approach within the MAST4HEALTH consortium (EU Horizon 2020 framework).
• Contributing to the COVID-19 HGI consortium, investigating genetic determinants of COVID-19 susceptibility, severity, and outcomes.
• Leading and contributing to projects within the Nutrition Working group of the CHARGE consortium, investigating gene-diet and gene-lifestyle associations for metabolic traits.
• Contributing to projects within the GIANT consortium, investigating the genetic architecture of anthropometric traits.

Publications

Selected publications (22/123; H-index 66), Full list of publications

1. Stavroula Kanoni, Sarah E Graham, et al. Implicating genes, pleiotropy and sexual dimorphism at blood lipid loci through multi-ancestry meta-analysis. doi: 10.1101/2021.12.15.21267852 (In press Genome Biol)
2. Ramdas*, J. Judd*, S.E. Graham*, S. Kanoni*, et al. A multi-layer functional genomic analysis to understand noncoding genetic variation in lipids AJHG (2022). doi: 10.1016/j.ajhg.2022.06.012.
3. E. Graham, S.L. Clarke*, KH.H. Wu*, S. Kanoni*, et al.The power of genetic diversity in genome-wide association studies of lipids. Nature (2021). doi: 10.1038/s41586-021-04064-3.
4. G. Aragam*, T. Jiang*, A. Goel*, S. Kanoni*, et al: Discovery and systematic characterization of risk variants and genes for coronary artery disease in over a million participants. doi:10.1101/2021.05.24.21257377 (In press Nature Genetics)
5. David Adlam, Takiy-Eddine Berrandou, Adrien Georges, …, Stavroula Kanoni, et al. Genome-wide association meta-analysis of spontaneous coronary artery dissection reveals common variants and genes related to artery integrity and tissue-mediated coagulation, medRxiv doi: 10.1101/2022.07.05.22277238
6. Loic Yengo, Sailaja Vedantam, …, Stavroula Kanoni, et al. A Saturated Map of Common Genetic Variants Associated with Human Height from 5.4 Million Individuals of Diverse Ancestries. doi: 10.1101/2022.01.07.475305 (In press)
7. COVID-19 Host Genetics Initiative. Mapping the human genetic architecture of COVID-19. Nature. 2021 Jul 8. doi: 10.1038/s41586-021-03767-x
8. Kanoni, et al, S. Visvikis-Siest: Nutrigenetic interactions might modulate the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory status in Mastiha-supplemented patients with NAFLD. Front Immunol (2021) doi:10.3389/fimmu.2021.683028
9. Amerikanou*, S. Kanoni*, et al: Effect of Mastiha supplementation on NAFLD: The MAST4HEALTH Randomised, Controlled Trial. Mol Nutr Food Res, e2001178 (2021) doi:10.1002/mnfr.202001178
10. S. Ahluwalia, B. P. Prins, M. Abdollahi, N. J. Armstrong, S. Aslibekyan, L. Bain, B. Jefferis, J. Baumert, M. Beekman, Y. Ben-Shlomo, J. C. Bis, B. D. Mitchell, E. de Geus, G. E. Delgado, D. Marek, J. Eriksson, E. Kajantie, S. Kanoni, et al: Genome-Wide Association Study of Circulating Interleukin 6 Levels Identifies Novel Loci. Hum Mol Genet (2021) doi:10.1093/hmg/ddab023
11. R. van Zuydam, C. Ladenvall, B. F. Voight, R. J. Strawbridge, J. Fernandez-Tajes, N. W. Rayner, N. R. Robertson, A. Mahajan, E. Vlachopoulou, A. Goel, M. E. Kleber, C. P. Nelson, L. C. Kwee, T. Esko, E. Mihailov, R. Mägi, L. Milani, K. Fischer, S. Kanoni, et al: Genetic Predisposition to Coronary Artery Disease in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus. Circ Genom Precis Med, 13(6), e002769 (2020) doi:10.1161/circgen.119.002769
12. Ntalla, S. Kanoni, et al: Genetic Risk Score for Coronary Disease Identifies Predispositions to Cardiovascular and Noncardiovascular Diseases. J Am Coll Cardiol, 73(23), 2932-2942 (2019) doi:10.1016/j.jacc.2019.03.512
13. Merino, H. S. Dashti, S. X. Li, C. Sarnowski, A. E. Justice, M. Graff, C. Papoutsakis, C. E. Smith, G. V. Dedoussis, R. N. Lemaitre, M. K. Wojczynski, S. Männistö, J. S. Ngwa, M. Kho, T. S. Ahluwalia, N. Pervjakova, D. K. Houston, C. Bouchard, T. Huang, M. Orho-Melander, A. C. Frazier-Wood, D. O. Mook-Kanamori, L. Pérusse, C. E. Pennell, P. S. de Vries, T. Voortman, O. Li, S. Kanoni, et al: Genome-wide meta-analysis of macronutrient intake of 91,114 European ancestry participants from the cohorts for heart and aging research in genomic epidemiology consortium. Mol Psychiatry, 24(12), 1920-1932 (2019) doi:10.1038/s41380-018-0079-4
14. Turcot, Y. Lu, H. M. Highland, C. Schurmann, A. E. Justice, R. S. Fine, …, S. Kanoni, et al. Loos: Protein-altering variants associated with body mass index implicate pathways that control energy intake and expenditure in obesity. Nat Genet, 50(1), 26-41 (2018) doi:10.1038/s41588-017-0011-x
15. R. Webb, J. Erdmann, K. E. Stirrups, N. O. Stitziel, N. G. Masca, H. Jansen, S. Kanoni, et al: Systematic Evaluation of Pleiotropy Identifies 6 Further Loci Associated With Coronary Artery Disease. J Am Coll Cardiol, 69(7), 823-836 (2017) doi:10.1016/j.jacc.2016.11.056
16. Saleheen, W. Zhao, R. Young, C. P. Nelson, W. Ho, J. F. Ferguson, A. Rasheed, K. Ou, S. T. Nurnberg, R. C. Bauer, A. Goel, R. Do, A. F. R. Stewart, J. Hartiala, W. Zhang, G. Thorleifsson, R. J. Strawbridge, J. Sinisalo, S. Kanoni, et al: Loss of Cardioprotective Effects at the ADAMTS7 Locus as a Result of Gene-Smoking Interactions. Circulation, 135(24), 2336-2353 (2017) doi:10.1161/circulationaha.116.022069
17. P. Nelson*, A. Goel*, A. S. Butterworth*, S. Kanoni*, et al: Association analyses based on false discovery rate implicate new loci for coronary artery disease. Nat Genet, 49(9), 1385-1391 (2017) doi:10.1038/ng.3913
18. J. Liu, G. M. Peloso, H. Yu, A. S. Butterworth, X. Wang, …, S. Kanoni, et al: Exome-wide association study of plasma lipids in >300,000 individuals. Nat Genet, 49(12), 1758-1766 (2017) doi:10.1038/ng.3977
19. O. Stitziel, K. E. Stirrups, N. G. Masca, J. Erdmann, P. G. Ferrario, I. R. König, P. E. Weeke, T. R. Webb, P. L. Auer, U. M. Schick, Y. Lu, H. Zhang, M. P. Dube, A. Goel, M. Farrall, G. M. Peloso, H. H. Won, R. Do, E. van Iperen, S. Kanoni, et al: Coding Variation in ANGPTL4, LPL, and SVEP1 and the Risk of Coronary Disease. N Engl J Med, 374(12), 1134-44 (2016) doi:10.1056/NEJMoa1507652
20. Kanoni, et al: Analysis with the exome array identifies multiple new independent variants in lipid loci. Hum Mol Genet, 25(18), 4094-4106 (2016) doi:10.1093/hmg/ddw227
21. Nikpay*, A. Goel*, H. H. Won*, L. M. Hall*, C. Willenborg*, S. Kanoni*, et al: A comprehensive 1,000 Genomes-based genome-wide association meta-analysis of coronary artery disease. Nat Genet, 47(10), 1121-1130 (2015) doi:10.1038/ng.3396
22. A. Nettleton, J. L. Follis, J. S. Ngwa, C. E. Smith, S. Ahmad, T. Tanaka, M. K. Wojczynski, T. Voortman, R. N. Lemaitre, K. Kristiansson, M. L. Nuotio, D. K. Houston, M. M. Perälä, Q. Qi, E. Sonestedt, A. Manichaikul, S. Kanoni, et al: Gene × dietary pattern interactions in obesity: analysis of up to 68 317 adults of European ancestry. Hum Mol Genet, 24(16), 4728-38 (2015) doi:10.1093/hmg/ddv186

*Equal contribution

Collaborators

Internal

• Panos Deloukas
• David van Heel
• Federica Marelli-Berg
• Greg Slabaugh
• William Alazawi
• Patricia Munroe
• Andrew Prendergast
• Jonathan Grigg
• James Timmons

External

• Gemma Hopewell (Oxford)
• Adam Butterworth (Cambridge)
• Chris Nelson (Leicester)
• Gina Peloso (BU, USA)
• Tim Assimes (Stanford, USA)
• Samuli Ripatti (FIN); Andrea Ganna (FIN)
• Stuart Phillips (McMaster, CA)