Azmeraw Amare

Dr. Azmeraw Amare is a clinical and genetic epidemiologist interested in Precision medicine, pharmacogenomics, and translational medicine. He has an interdisciplinary educational background, with academic qualifications in clinical epidemiology, Genetics, Medical Biostatistics, public health and completed a PhD in medicine at the University of Adelaide. PhD thesis: Genetic predictors of response to pharmacotherapy in patients with mood disorders: Steps on the path to Personalized Psychiatry

Azmeraw has extensive experience in big clinical and genetic data analysis such as genome-wide DNA, polygenic and gene expression analysis using advanced genetic statistical tools.

He is currently working at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI) as a Translational research fellow.

Selected Publications

1. Amare AT, Schubert KO, Hou L, Clark SR, Papiol S, Heilbronner U et al. Association of Polygenic Score for Schizophrenia and HLA Antigen and Inflammation Genes With Response to Lithium in Bipolar Affective Disorder: A Genome-Wide Association Study. JAMA Psychiatry 2018; 75(1): 65-74.

2. Amare AT, Ahmad Vaez, Yi-Hsiang Hsu, Nese Direk, Zoha Kamali, David M. Howard, Andrew M. McIntosh, Henning Tiemeier, Ute Bültmann, Harold Snieder, Catharina A. Hartman. Bivariate genome-wide association analyses of a broad depression phenotype combined with major depression, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia reveal eight novel genetic loci for depression. Nature: Molecular Psychiatry, 2019

3. Amare AT, Schubert KO, Klingler-Hoffmann M, Cohen-Woods S, Baune BT. The genetic overlap between mood disorders and cardiometabolic diseases: a systematic review of genome-wide and candidate gene studies. Translational Psychiatry 2017; 7: e1007.

4. Amare AT, Schubert KO, Baune BT. Pharmacogenomics in the treatment of mood disorders: Strategies and Opportunities for personalized psychiatry. The EPMA journal 2017; 8(3): 211-227.

5. Amare AT, Schubert KOT, Schulze TG, Baune B. Polygenic scores for major depressive disorder and depressive symptoms predict response to lithium in patients with bipolar disorder. bioRxiv 2018.

6. Amare AT, Schubert KO, Tekola-Ayele F, Hsu YH, Sangkuhl K, Jenkins G et al. Association of the Polygenic Scores for Personality Traits and Response to Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors in Patients with Major Depressive Disorder. Frontiers in Psychiatry 2018; 9: 65.

7. Tekola-Ayele F, Workalemahu T, Amare AT. High burden of birthweight-lowering genetic variants in Africans and Asians. BMC medicine 2018; 16(1): 70.

8. Stacey D, Schubert KO, Clark SR, Amare AT, Milanesi E, Maj C et al. A gene co-expression module implicating the mitochondrial electron transport chain is associated with long-term response to lithium treatment in bipolar affective disorder. Transl Psychiatry 2018; 8(1): 183.

9. Opel N, Amare AT, Redlich R, Repple J, Kaehler C, Grotegerd D et al. Cortical surface area alterations shaped by genetic load for neuroticism. Molecular Psychiatry 2018.

10. Nolte IM, Munoz ML, Tragante V, Amare AT, Jansen R, Vaez A et al. Genetic loci associated with heart rate variability and their effects on cardiac disease risk. Nature Communications 2017; 8: 15805.

11. Haljas K, Amare AT, Alizadeh BZ, Hsu YH, Mosley T, Newman A et al. Bivariate Genome-Wide Association Study of Depressive Symptoms With Type 2 Diabetes and Quantitative Glycemic Traits. Psychosomatic medicine 2018; 80(3): 242-251.

12. Direk N, Williams S, Smith JA, Ripke S, Air T, Amare AT, et al. An Analysis of Two Genome-wide Association Meta-analyses Identifies a New Locus for Broad Depression Phenotype. Biological Psychiatry 2017; 82(5): 322-329.

13. Ciobanu LG, Ferrari AJ, Erskine HE, Santomauro DF, Charlson FJ, Leung J Amare AT et al. The prevalence and burden of mental and substance use disorders in Australia: Findings from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015. The Australian and New Zealand journal of psychiatry 2018; 52(5): 483-490.