I obtained my undergraduate degreee in Biomedical Sciences and Master's degree in Genetics from the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR) in Curitiba, Brazil, as part of the Human Molecular Genetics Laboratory (LGMH). I also completed a study abroad focused in Medical Genetics at Monash University, in Melbourne, Australia. I am currently a fifth-year PhD candidate in the Human Medical Genetics and Genomics Program at the Department of Biomedical Informatics @ University of Colorado Anschutz, Denver, CO, USA.
My day-to-day as a genetic epidemiologist involves using large health research consortia to enhance the utility of polygenic risk scores (PRS), social determinants of health (SDoH), and multi-omics (epigenomics, transcriptomics, proteomics & metabolomics) in characterizing and predicting pulmonary and cardiovascular diseases.
Throughout my doctoral journey, I worked as part of multiple collaborative consortia:
- Polygenic Risk Methods Development (PRIMED) Consortium
- Characterizing type 2 diabetes (T2D) subtypes in the U.S. to improve prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and management (DEFINE-T2D)
- Multi-omic networks associated with COPD progression in TOPMed Cohorts (NetCO)
- Population Architecture through Genomics and Environment (PAGE)
- Trans-Omics for Precision Medicine (TOPMed)
- Colorado Center for Personalized Medicine Biobank (CCPM)
Some of my recent and most relevant publications include:
- Ancestry Calibration of Polygenic Risk Scores Improves Risk Stratification and Effect Estimation in African American Adults. Vargas et al (2025). medRxiv preprint
- Omic Risk Scores are Associated with COPD-related Traits Across Three Cohorts. Konigsberg, Vargas et al (2025). medRxiv preprint
- Gene expression associations with body mass index in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis. Vargas et al (2023). Int. J. Obesity
More publications can be found on my Google Scholar profile.
