Contact Details:

p.b.munroe@qmul.ac.uk

Patricia graduated with a B.Sc. in Biochemistry and M.Sc. in Biotechnology from University College Galway, Ireland. She then undertook Ph.D. studies at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London graduating in 1995. She joined the William Harvey Research Institute as a Lecturer in 1998 after a post-doctoral fellowship at UCL. She was appointed Professor of Molecular Medicine in 2007.

Current research interests

Prof. Munroe’s research is primarily focused on determining the genetic basis of essential hypertension. Essential hypertension (high blood pressure) is estimated to affect over a billion people worldwide, and is expected to rise to 1.5 billion by 2016. Recent estimates suggest that increased blood pressure contributes to 50% of coronary heart disease and 69% of stroke morbidity. Although blood pressure lowering therapies exist there still remains a significant need for novel therapies as up to 50% of patients do not reach recommended target levels. Hypertension is a multifactorial condition; that is both genes and environmental factors contribute to its cause.

Patricia is co-leading international studies (Global BPgen and ICBP-GWAS consortia) to find genes causing high blood pressure. She also co-ordinates the British Genetics of Hypertension (BRIGHT) study with Prof Mark Caulfield. She is also a member of the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium (WTCCC).

The following research projects are active in the lab at the moment:

• Meta-analysis of genome wide association studies (GWAS) for blood pressure.
• Fine-mapping and re-sequencing of blood pressure and cardiovascular loci.
• GWAS for hypertension.
• Meta-analysis of GWAS for QT interval (QT-IGC consortium).
• Rare variant analysis for blood pressure and hypertension.
• Meta-analysis of GWAS for various quantitative cardiovascular traits, including lipids, urate, creatinine and LVH.

Key publications

• Genome-wide association study identifies eight loci associated with blood pressure. Newton-Cheh C, Johnson T, Gateva V, Tobin MD, Bochud M, Coin L, Najjar SS, Zhao JH, Heath SC, Eyheramendy S, Papadakis K, Voight BF, Scott LJ, Zhang F, Farrall M, Tanaka T, Wallace C, Chambers JC, Khaw KT, Nilsson P, van der Harst P, Polidoro S, Grobbee DE, Onland-Moret NC, Bots ML, Wain LV, Elliott KS, Teumer A, Luan J, Lucas G, Kuusisto J, Burton PR, Hadley D, McArdle WL; Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium, Brown M, Dominiczak A, Newhouse SJ, Samani NJ, Webster J, Zeggini E, Beckmann JS, Bergmann S, Lim N, Song K, Vollenweider P, Waeber G, Waterworth DM, Yuan X, Groop L, Orho-Melander M, Allione A, Di Gregorio A, Guarrera S, Panico S, Ricceri F, Romanazzi V, Sacerdote C, Vineis P, Barroso I, Sandhu MS, Luben RN, Crawford GJ, Jousilahti P, Perola M, Boehnke M, Bonnycastle LL, Collins FS, Jackson AU, Mohlke KL, Stringham HM, Valle TT, Willer CJ, Bergman RN, Morken MA, Döring A, Gieger C, Illig T, Meitinger T, Org E, Pfeufer A, Wichmann HE, Kathiresan S, Marrugat J, O'Donnell CJ, Schwartz SM, Siscovick DS, Subirana I, Freimer NB, Hartikainen AL, McCarthy MI, O'Reilly PF, Peltonen L, Pouta A, de Jong PE, Snieder H, van Gilst WH, Clarke R, Goel A, Hamsten A, Peden JF, Seedorf U, Syvänen AC, Tognoni G, Lakatta EG, Sanna S, Scheet P, Schlessinger D, Scuteri A, Dörr M, Ernst F, Felix SB, Homuth G, Lorbeer R, Reffelmann T, Rettig R, Völker U, Galan P, Gut IG, Hercberg S, Lathrop GM, Zelenika D, Deloukas P, Soranzo N, Williams FM, Zhai G, Salomaa V, Laakso M, Elosua R, Forouhi NG, Völzke H, Uiterwaal CS, van der Schouw YT, Numans ME, Matullo G, Navis G, Berglund G, Bingham SA, Kooner JS, Connell JM, Bandinelli S, Ferrucci L, Watkins H, Spector TD, Tuomilehto J, Altshuler D, Strachan DP, Laan M, Meneton P, Wareham NJ, Uda M, Jarvelin MR, Mooser V, Melander O, Loos RJ, Elliott P, Abecasis GR, Caulfield M, Munroe PB. Nat Genet. 2009 May 10. [Epub ahead of print] PMID: 19430483 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher].
  
  
• Gene-centric association signals for lipids and apolipoproteins identified via the HumanCVD BeadChip. Talmud PJ, Drenos F, Shah S, Shah T, Palmen J, Verzilli C, Gaunt TR, Pallas J, Lovering R, Li K, Casas JP, Sofat R, Kumari M, Rodriguez S, Johnson T, Newhouse SJ, Dominiczak A, Samani NJ, Caulfield M, Sever P, Stanton A, Shields DC, Padmanabhan S, Melander O, Hastie C, Delles C, Ebrahim S, Marmot MG, Smith GD, Lawlor DA, Munroe PB, Day IN, Kivimaki M, Whittaker J, Humphries SE, Hingorani AD; ASCOT investigators; NORDIL investigators; BRIGHT Consortium. Am J Hum Genetics (2009) Nov;85(5):628-42.
  
  
• Polymorphisms in the WNK1 gene are associated with blood pressure variation and urinary potassium excretion. S Newhouse, M Farrall, C Wallace, M Hoti, B Burke, P Howard, A Onipinla, K Lee, S Shaw-Hawkins, R Dobson, M Brown, NJ Samani, AF Dominiczak, JM. Connell, GM Lathrop, J Kooner, J Chambers, P Elliott, R Clarke, R Collins, M Laan, E Org, P Juhanson, G Veldre, M Viigimaa, S Eyheramendy, FP Cappuccio, C Ji, R Iacone, P Strazzullo, M Kumari, M Marmot, E Brunner, M Caulfield and PB Munroe. PLoS One. (2009)4(4):e5003.
  
  
• Common genetic variation near the phospholamban gene is associated with cardiac repolarisation: meta-analysis of three genome-wide association studies. Nolte IM, Wallace C, Newhouse SJ, Waggott D, Fu J, Soranzo N, Gwilliam R, Deloukas P, Savelieva I, Zheng D, Dalageorgou C, Farrall M, Samani NJ, Connell J, Brown M, Dominiczak A, Lathrop M, Zeggini E, Wain LV; Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium; DCCT/EDIC Research Group, Newton-Cheh C, Eijgelsheim M, Rice K, de Bakker PI; QTGEN consortium, Pfeufer A, Sanna S, Arking DE; QTSCD consortium, Asselbergs FW, Spector TD, Carter ND, Jeffery S, Tobin M, Caulfield M, Snieder H, Paterson AD, Munroe PB*, Jamshidi Y*. PLoS One (2009) Jul 9;4(7):e6138.
  
  
• SLC2A9 is a high capacity urate transporter in human (2008). MJ Caulfield*, PB Munroe*, D O'Neill, K Witkowska, FJ Charchar, M Doblado, S Evans, S Eyheramendy, A Onipinla, P Howard, S Shaw-Hawkins , RJ Dobson, C Wallace, SJ Newhouse, M Brown, JM Connell, A Dominiczak, M Farrall, GM Lathrop, NJ Samani, J Webster, M Kumari, M Marmot, E Brunner, J Chambers, P Elliott, J Kooner, M Laan, E Org, G Veldre, M Viigimaa, FP Cappuccio, C Ji, R Iacone, P Strazzullo, KH. Moley*, C Cheeseman*. PLOS Medicine, PLoS Med. 2008 Oct 7;5(10):e197.
  
  
• Wallace C, Newhouse SJ, Braund P, Zhang F, Tobin M, Falchi M, Ahmadi K, Dobson RJ, Marçano AC, Hajat C, Burton P, Deloukas P, Brown M, Connell JM, Dominiczak A, Lathrop GM, Webster J, Farrall M, Spector T, Samani NJ, Caulfield MJ, Munroe PB (2008). Genome-wide association study identifies genes for biomarkers of cardiovascular disease: serum urate and dyslipidemia. Am J Hum Genet. Jan;82(1):139-49.
  
  
• The Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium. Genome-wide association study of 14,000 cases of seven common diseases and 3,000 shared controls (2007). Nature 447: 661-678.
  
  
• Linkage analysis using co-phenotypes in the BRIGHT study reveals novel potential susceptibility loci for hypertension (2006). C Wallace, M Xue, SJ Newhouse, ACB Marçano, AK Onipinla, B Burke, J Gungadoo, RJ Dobson, M Brown, J Connell, AF Dominiczak, M Lathrop, J Webster, M Farrall, CA Mein, N Samani, M Caulfield, D Clayton, PB Munroe. American Journal of Human Genetics. 79(2): 323-31.
  
  
• Genome-wide mapping of human loci for essential hypertension. M Caulfield, P Munroe, J Pembroke, N Samani, A Dominiczak, M Brown, N Benjamin, J Webster, P Ratcliffe, S O'Shea, J Papp, E Taylor, R Dobson, J Knight, S Newhouse, J Hooper, W Lee, N Brain, D Clayton, GM Lathrop, M Farrall, J Connell (2003). (The MRC British Genetics of Hypertension Study). Lancet. 2003. 361(9375):2118-23.
  
  
• Munroe, P. (2008), "Genome scans for hypertension", in Humphries, S. (ed.), Genetics of Cardiovascular Disease: Genetic interactions in a multifactorial disease, The Biomedical & Life Sciences Collection, Henry Stewart Talks Ltd, London (online at

  http://www.hstalks.com/?t=BL0692021-Munroe)

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