I am a medical doctor and molecular epidemiologist working as an Associate Professor and Principal investigator (PI) at the department of Epidemiology. I have a multidisciplinary background due to training and working in the clinic, epidemiology and molecular biology fields. As the PI of Molecular and Systems Epidemiology group, I’m currently leading a research group of 3 Postdocs, 5 PhDs and 3 MSc students, teaching in multiple courses offered by the Netherlands Institute for Health Sciences (NIHES), and coordinating ‘omics’ data in the population-based Rotterdam Study (~15,000 individuals) and the Erasmus Rucphen Family study (~3,000 individuals). My research focuses on the identification of genetic determinants and potential biomarkers for complex age-related diseases (e.g. Alzheimer’s disease, type 2 diabetes and fatty liver disease). To this end, we integrate various omics data from epidemiological studies, apply advanced statistical methods, and conduct state-of-the-art molecular and cellular model studies. I am involved in several national and international genomics consortia and lead some multi-centre collaborative projects.

Molecular epidemiology, Population genomics, Non-coding RNAs, microRNAs, Metabolomics, Biomarker discovery, Age-related diseases

In the last five years, I have been a lecturer and teaching assistant in several courses. I was a teaching assistant in the course “Principles of Epidemiology” in Erasmus Summer Program 2016. Between 2017 and 2019, I was teaching in the course “Cardiovascular Epidemiology” which is part of the Epidemiology Master program of NIHES. Moreover, I was a lecturer in the course “Genomics in Molecular Medicine” between 2017 and 2019, which extends to issue on omics data analysis in epidemiological studies. I was also a lecture in the “Molecular Epidemiology” course provided by Imperial College London in 2020 and 2021. Since 2021, I am coordinator and the main lecturer in the course “Principles of Genetic Epidemiology” in the Erasmus Summer Program. I am also co-coordinator and lecturer in two courses “Introduction to Epigenomics & Transcriptomics” and “Introduction to Proteomics & Metabolomics” provided by NIHES from 2022. In addition to teaching in these courses, I have supervised/still supervise research projects of dozens of MSc and PhD students through regular meetings, in which I have taught/teach them the concepts and common methods of molecular and genetic epidemiology. 

• MODEM grant, A national multi-centric grant for understanding Mechanisms Of Dementia, Co-investigator, 2022-2027
• Alzheimer Nederland grant, Role of non-coding RNAs in metabolic pathways underlying Alzheimer’s disease, Main investigator, 2022-2024.
• Erasmus MC Fellowship, Atlas of genetic architecture and disease association of microRNAs, Main Investigator, 2022-2026.
• SOPHIA grant, A multi-centric H2020 grant for Obesity, Co-investigator, 2020-2023
• An NIH grant for Gene-lifestyle interaction analysis, Co-investigator, 2021-2023
• Janssen Prevention Center in Leiden, the Netherlands, Prevention Biomarkers, Co-Investigator, 2017-2020.
• Alzheimer Nederland travel grant, Casual Inference and Alzheimer’s disease, 2018
• European Fellowship for study of the Diabetes, Visiting Imperial College London, 2018
• European Society of Human Genetics fellowship, Advanced courses in Human Genetics, 2016
• Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education Scholarship, 4-year fund for PhD research, 2011-2015

Molecular and Systems Epidemiology
Integrating multi-omics data from population-based studies and conducting experimental validation studies, we aim to elucidate molecular pathways underlying age-related diseases and identify potential biomarkers for their early diagnosis.