Brunilda Balliu

Title(s)Assistant Professor, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
SchoolMedicine
ORCID ORCID Icon0000-0001-8953-804X Additional info
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    Title(s)Assistant Professor, Computational Medicine


    Collapse Biography 
    Collapse Education and Training
    Stanford University , Stanford, CA, USAPostdoc09/2018Genetics
    Leiden University, The NetherlandsPhD09/2015Statistical Genetics
    Athens University of Economics and Business, GreeceB.Sc06/2010Statistics

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    Dr Balliu is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine and Computational Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. She obtained a BSc. in Statistics from the Athens University of Economics and Business in Greece and a Ph.D. in Statistical Genetics from the Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Jeanine Houwing-Duistermaat and Stefan Boehringer. She did her postdoctoral research at Stanford University with Stephen Montgomery, focusing on methods to understand the role of inherited variation on molecular and complex traits. She joined UCLA in 2018 as an Independent Fellow in the Department of Computational Medicine and later as a faculty in the Departments of Pathology and Computational Medicine.
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    Leveraging genetic variation to dissect gene regulatory networks of reprogramming to pluripotency
    NIH U01HG012079Sep 1, 2021 - May 31, 2026
    Role: Co-Investigator
    Integrating human and animal studies to reveal mechanisms of anhedonia
    Wellcome Leap, Inc. 20222084Sep 1, 2021 - Sep 1, 2025
    Role: Co-Investigator
    Description: In this project, we aim to investigate the relationships between longitudinally collected digital behavioral phenotypes, traditional assessments of depression, and functional MRI data in order to identify digital behavioral phenotypes that predict anhedonic brain-state as measured by functional MRI at rest and during reward anticipation and motivation tasks.
    SINGLE-CELL MULTI-OMIC APPROACHES TO MECHANISTICALLY CHARACTERIZE PSYCHIATRIC DISORDER RISK LOCI IN THE HUMAN BRAIN
    NIH R01MH125252May 18, 2021 - Feb 28, 2026
    Role: Co-Investigator
    Methods for disease mapping in multi-ethnic populations
    NIH R01HG006399Jun 15, 2011 - Jun 30, 2025
    Role: Co-Investigator

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    Collapse Publications
    Publications listed below are automatically derived from MEDLINE/PubMed and other sources, which might result in incorrect or missing publications. Researchers can login to make corrections and additions, or contact us for help. to make corrections and additions.
    Newest   |   Oldest   |   Most Cited   |   Most Discussed   |   Timeline   |   Field Summary   |   Plain Text
    Altmetrics Details PMC Citations indicate the number of times the publication was cited by articles in PubMed Central, and the Altmetric score represents citations in news articles and social media. (Note that publications are often cited in additional ways that are not shown here.) Fields are based on how the National Library of Medicine (NLM) classifies the publication's journal and might not represent the specific topic of the publication. Translation tags are based on the publication type and the MeSH terms NLM assigns to the publication. Some publications (especially newer ones and publications not in PubMed) might not yet be assigned Field or Translation tags.) Click a Field or Translation tag to filter the publications.
    1. Personalized mood prediction from patterns of behavior collected with smartphones. NPJ Digit Med. 2024 Feb 28; 7(1):49. Balliu B, Douglas C, Seok D, Shenhav L, Wu Y, Chatzopoulou D, Kaiser W, Chen V, Kim J, Deverasetty S, Arnaudova I, Gibbons R, Congdon E, Craske MG, Freimer N, Halperin E, Sankararaman S, Flint J. PMID: 38418551; PMCID: PMC10902386.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions:
    2. A cis-regulatory element regulates ERAP2 expression through autoimmune disease risk SNPs. Cell Genom. 2024 Jan 10; 4(1):100460. Venema WJ, Hiddingh S, van Loosdregt J, Bowes J, Balliu B, de Boer JH, Ossewaarde-van Norel J, Thompson SD, Langefeld CD, de Ligt A, van der Veken LT, Krijger PHL, de Laat W, Kuiper JJW. PMID: 38190099; PMCID: PMC10794781.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: Translation:HumansCells
    3. Transcriptomics and chromatin accessibility in multiple African population samples. bioRxiv. 2023 Nov 06. DeGorter MK, Goddard PC, Karakoc E, Kundu S, Yan SM, Nachun D, Abell N, Aguirre M, Carstensen T, Chen Z, Durrant M, Dwaracherla VR, Feng K, Gloudemans MJ, Hunter N, Moorthy MPS, Pomilla C, Rodrigues KB, Smith CJ, Smith KS, Ungar RA, Balliu B, Fellay J, Flicek P, McLaren PJ, Henn B, McCoy RC, Sugden L, Kundaje A, Sandhu MS, Gurdasani D, Montgomery SB. PMID: 37986808; PMCID: PMC10659267.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions:
    4. Disease risk and healthcare utilization among ancestrally diverse groups in the Los Angeles region. Nat Med. 2023 07; 29(7):1845-1856. Caggiano C, Boudaie A, Shemirani R, Mefford J, Petter E, Chiu A, Ercelen D, He R, Tward D, Paul KC, Chang TS, Pasaniuc B, Kenny EE, Shortt JA, Gignoux CR, Balliu B, Arboleda VA, Belbin G, Zaitlen N. PMID: 37464048.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 1     Fields:    Translation:Humans
    5. Increased body mass index is linked to systemic inflammation through altered chromatin co-accessibility in human preadipocytes. Nat Commun. 2023 07 14; 14(1):4214. Garske KM, Kar A, Comenho C, Balliu B, Pan DZ, Bhagat YV, Rosenberg G, Koka A, Das SS, Miao Z, Sinsheimer JS, Kaprio J, Pietiläinen KH, Pajukanta P. PMID: 37452040; PMCID: PMC10349101.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 1     Fields:    Translation:HumansCells
    6. RNA-seq data science: From raw data to effective interpretation. Front Genet. 2023; 14:997383. Deshpande D, Chhugani K, Chang Y, Karlsberg A, Loeffler C, Zhang J, Muszynska A, Munteanu V, Yang H, Rotman J, Tao L, Balliu B, Tseng E, Eskin E, Zhao F, Mohammadi P, P Labaj P, Mangul S. PMID: 36999049; PMCID: PMC10043755.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 10  
    7. Author Correction: Leveraging genomic diversity for discovery in an electronic health record linked biobank: the UCLA ATLAS Community Health Initiative. Genome Med. 2022 Nov 16; 14(1):128. Johnson R, Ding Y, Venkateswaran V, Bhattacharya A, Boulier K, Chiu A, Knyazev S, Schwarz T, Freund M, Zhan L, Burch KS, Caggiano C, Hill B, Rakocz N, Balliu B, Denny CT, Sul JH, Zaitlen N, Arboleda VA, Halperin E, Sankararaman S, Butte MJ, UCLA Precision Health Data Discovery Repository Working Group, UCLA Precision Health ATLAS Working G, Lajonchere C, Geschwind DH, Pasaniuc B. PMID: 36384576; PMCID: PMC9670414.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions:    Fields:    
    8. Multi-context genetic modeling of transcriptional regulation resolves novel disease loci. Nat Commun. 2022 09 28; 13(1):5704. Thompson M, Gordon MG, Lu A, Tandon A, Halperin E, Gusev A, Ye CJ, Balliu B, Zaitlen N. PMID: 36171194; PMCID: PMC9519579.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 4     Fields:    Translation:HumansCells
    9. Leveraging genomic diversity for discovery in an electronic health record linked biobank: the UCLA ATLAS Community Health Initiative. Genome Med. 2022 Sep 09; 14(1):104. Johnson R, Ding Y, Venkateswaran V, Bhattacharya A, Boulier K, Chiu A, Knyazev S, Schwarz T, Freund M, Zhan L, Burch KS, Caggiano C, Hill B, Rakocz N, Balliu B, Denny CT, Sul JH, Zaitlen N, Arboleda VA, Halperin E, Sankararaman S, Butte MJ, UCLA Precision Health Data Discovery Repository Working Group, UCLA Precision Health ATLAS Working G, Lajonchere C, Geschwind DH, Pasaniuc B. PMID: 36085083; PMCID: PMC9461263.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 11     Fields:    Translation:HumansPHPublic Health
    10. Single-cell RNA-seq reveals cell type-specific molecular and genetic associations to lupus. Science. 2022 04 08; 376(6589):eabf1970. Perez RK, Gordon MG, Subramaniam M, Kim MC, Hartoularos GC, Targ S, Sun Y, Ogorodnikov A, Bueno R, Lu A, Thompson M, Rappoport N, Dahl A, Lanata CM, Matloubian M, Maliskova L, Kwek SS, Li T, Slyper M, Waldman J, Dionne D, Rozenblatt-Rosen O, Fong L, Dall'Era M, Balliu B, Regev A, Yazdany J, Criswell LA, Zaitlen N, Ye CJ. PMID: 35389781; PMCID: PMC9297655.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 77     Fields:    Translation:HumansCells
    11. Integration of genetic colocalizations with physiological and pharmacological perturbations identifies cardiometabolic disease genes. Genome Med. 2022 03 15; 14(1):31. Gloudemans MJ, Balliu B, Nachun D, Schnurr TM, Durrant MG, Ingelsson E, Wabitsch M, Quertermous T, Montgomery SB, Knowles JW, Carcamo-Orive I. PMID: 35292083; PMCID: PMC8925074.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 6     Fields:    Translation:Humans
    12. Evaluating supervised and unsupervised background noise correction in human gut microbiome data. PLoS Comput Biol. 2022 02; 18(2):e1009838. Briscoe L, Balliu B, Sankararaman S, Halperin E, Garud NR. PMID: 35130266; PMCID: PMC8853548.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 3     Fields:    Translation:Humans
    13. An integrated approach to identify environmental modulators of genetic risk factors for complex traits. Am J Hum Genet. 2021 10 07; 108(10):1866-1879. Balliu B, Carcamo-Orive I, Gloudemans MJ, Nachun DC, Durrant MG, Gazal S, Park CY, Knowles DA, Wabitsch M, Quertermous T, Knowles JW, Montgomery SB. PMID: 34582792; PMCID: PMC8546041.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 6     Fields:    Translation:Humans
    14. Technology dictates algorithms: recent developments in read alignment. Genome Biol. 2021 08 26; 22(1):249. Alser M, Rotman J, Deshpande D, Taraszka K, Shi H, Baykal PI, Yang HT, Xue V, Knyazev S, Singer BD, Balliu B, Koslicki D, Skums P, Zelikovsky A, Alkan C, Mutlu O, Mangul S. PMID: 34446078; PMCID: PMC8390189.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 25     Fields:    Translation:HumansCells
    15. Association of image-defined risk factors with clinical features, histopathology, and outcomes in neuroblastoma. Cancer Med. 2021 04; 10(7):2232-2241. Temple WC, Vo KT, Matthay KK, Balliu B, Coleman C, Michlitsch J, Phelps A, Behr S, Zapala MA. PMID: 33314708; PMCID: PMC7982630.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 12     Fields:    Translation:Humans
    16. A machine learning algorithm to increase COVID-19 inpatient diagnostic capacity. PLoS One. 2020; 15(9):e0239474. Goodman-Meza D, Rudas A, Chiang JN, Adamson PC, Ebinger J, Sun N, Botting P, Fulcher JA, Saab FG, Brook R, Eskin E, An U, Kordi M, Jew B, Balliu B, Chen Z, Hill BL, Rahmani E, Halperin E, Manuel V. PMID: 32960917; PMCID: PMC7508387.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 24     Fields:    Translation:HumansCellsPHPublic Health
    17. The impact of sex on gene expression across human tissues. Science. 2020 09 11; 369(6509). Oliva M, Muñoz-Aguirre M, Kim-Hellmuth S, Wucher V, Gewirtz ADH, Cotter DJ, Parsana P, Kasela S, Balliu B, Viñuela A, Castel SE, Mohammadi P, Aguet F, Zou Y, Khramtsova EA, Skol AD, Garrido-Martín D, Reverter F, Brown A, Evans P, Gamazon ER, Payne A, Bonazzola R, Barbeira AN, Hamel AR, Martinez-Perez A, Soria JM, GTEx Consortium, Pierce BL, Stephens M, Eskin E, Dermitzakis ET, Segrè AV, Im HK, Engelhardt BE, Ardlie KG, Montgomery SB, Battle AJ, Lappalainen T, Guigó R, Stranger BE. PMID: 32913072; PMCID: PMC8136152.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 204     Fields:    Translation:HumansCells
    18. Impact of admixture and ancestry on eQTL analysis and GWAS colocalization in GTEx. Genome Biol. 2020 09 11; 21(1):233. Gay NR, Gloudemans M, Antonio ML, Abell NS, Balliu B, Park Y, Martin AR, Musharoff S, Rao AS, Aguet F, Barbeira AN, Bonazzola R, Hormozdiari F, GTEx Consortium, Ardlie KG, Brown CD, Im HK, Lappalainen T, Wen X, Montgomery SB. PMID: 32912333; PMCID: PMC7488497.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 36     Fields:    Translation:Humans
    19. Molecular Choreography of Acute Exercise. Cell. 2020 05 28; 181(5):1112-1130.e16. Contrepois K, Wu S, Moneghetti KJ, Hornburg D, Ahadi S, Tsai MS, Metwally AA, Wei E, Lee-McMullen B, Quijada JV, Chen S, Christle JW, Ellenberger M, Balliu B, Taylor S, Durrant MG, Knowles DA, Choudhry H, Ashland M, Bahmani A, Enslen B, Amsallem M, Kobayashi Y, Avina M, Perelman D, Schüssler-Fiorenza Rose SM, Zhou W, Ashley EA, Montgomery SB, Chaib H, Haddad F, Snyder MP. PMID: 32470399; PMCID: PMC7299174.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 126     Fields:    Translation:HumansCells
    20. Genetic regulation of gene expression and splicing during a 10-year period of human aging. Genome Biol. 2019 11 04; 20(1):230. Balliu B, Durrant M, Goede O, Abell N, Li X, Liu B, Gloudemans MJ, Cook NL, Smith KS, Knowles DA, Pala M, Cucca F, Schlessinger D, Jaiswal S, Sabatti C, Lind L, Ingelsson E, Montgomery SB. PMID: 31684996; PMCID: PMC6827221.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 22     Fields:    Translation:HumansCells
    21. Identification of rare-disease genes using blood transcriptome sequencing and large control cohorts. Nat Med. 2019 06; 25(6):911-919. Frésard L, Smail C, Ferraro NM, Teran NA, Li X, Smith KS, Bonner D, Kernohan KD, Marwaha S, Zappala Z, Balliu B, Davis JR, Liu B, Prybol CJ, Kohler JN, Zastrow DB, Reuter CM, Fisk DG, Grove ME, Davidson JM, Hartley T, Joshi R, Strober BJ, Utiramerur S, Undiagnosed Diseases Network, Care4Rare Canada Consortium, Lind L, Ingelsson E, Battle A, Bejerano G, Bernstein JA, Ashley EA, Boycott KM, Merker JD, Wheeler MT, Montgomery SB. PMID: 31160820; PMCID: PMC6634302.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 120     Fields:    Translation:HumansCells
    22. Genetic analyses of human fetal retinal pigment epithelium gene expression suggest ocular disease mechanisms. Commun Biol. 2019; 2:186. Liu B, Calton MA, Abell NS, Benchorin G, Gloudemans MJ, Chen M, Hu J, Li X, Balliu B, Bok D, Montgomery SB, Vollrath D. PMID: 31123710; PMCID: PMC6527609.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 16  Translation:HumansCells
    23. Powerful testing via hierarchical linkage disequilibrium in haplotype association studies. Biom J. 2019 05; 61(3):747-768. Balliu B, Houwing-Duistermaat JJ, Böhringer S. PMID: 30693553; PMCID: PMC6637384.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 3     Fields:    Translation:Humans
    24. Distinctive facial features in idiopathic Moyamoya disease in Caucasians: a first systematic analysis. PeerJ. 2018; 6:e4740. Kraemer M, Huynh QB, Wieczorek D, Balliu B, Mikat B, Boehringer S. PMID: 29977664; PMCID: PMC6029584.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 4     Fields:    
    25. Shared genetic origin of asthma, hay fever and eczema elucidates allergic disease biology. Nat Genet. 2017 Dec; 49(12):1752-1757. Ferreira MA, Vonk JM, Baurecht H, Marenholz I, Tian C, Hoffman JD, Helmer Q, Tillander A, Ullemar V, van Dongen J, Lu Y, Rüschendorf F, Esparza-Gordillo J, Medway CW, Mountjoy E, Burrows K, Hummel O, Grosche S, Brumpton BM, Witte JS, Hottenga JJ, Willemsen G, Zheng J, Rodríguez E, Hotze M, Franke A, Revez JA, Beesley J, Matheson MC, Dharmage SC, Bain LM, Fritsche LG, Gabrielsen ME, Balliu B, 23andMe Research Team, AAGC collaborators, BIOS consortium, LifeLines Cohort Study, Nielsen JB, Zhou W, Hveem K, Langhammer A, Holmen OL, Løset M, Abecasis GR, Willer CJ, Arnold A, Homuth G, Schmidt CO, Thompson PJ, Martin NG, Duffy DL, Novak N, Schulz H, Karrasch S, Gieger C, Strauch K, Melles RB, Hinds DA, Hübner N, Weidinger S, Magnusson PKE, Jansen R, Jorgenson E, Lee YA, Boomsma DI, Almqvist C, Karlsson R, Koppelman GH, Paternoster L. PMID: 29083406; PMCID: PMC5989923.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 201     Fields:    Translation:Humans
    26. Gene coexpression network analysis for family studies based on a meta-analytic approach. BMC Proc. 2016; 10(Suppl 7):119-123. Tissier R, Uh HW, van den Akker E, Balliu B, Tsonaka S, Houwing-Duistermaat J. PMID: 27980622; PMCID: PMC5133496.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 1  
    27. Impact of the X Chromosome and sex on regulatory variation. Genome Res. 2016 06; 26(6):768-77. Kukurba KR, Parsana P, Balliu B, Smith KS, Zappala Z, Knowles DA, Favé MJ, Davis JR, Li X, Zhu X, Potash JB, Weissman MM, Shi J, Kundaje A, Levinson DF, Awadalla P, Mostafavi S, Battle A, Montgomery SB. PMID: 27197214; PMCID: PMC4889977.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 49     Fields:    Translation:HumansCells
    28. A Novel Test for Detecting SNP-SNP Interactions in Case-Only Trio Studies. Genetics. 2016 Apr; 202(4):1289-97. Balliu B, Zaitlen N. PMID: 26865367; PMCID: PMC4905548.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 2     Fields:    Translation:Humans
    29. A retrospective likelihood approach for efficient integration of multiple omics factors in case-control association studies. Genet Epidemiol. 2015 Mar; 39(3):156-65. Balliu B, Tsonaka R, Boehringer S, Houwing-Duistermaat J. PMID: 25620726.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 3     Fields:    Translation:Humans
    30. Classification and visualization based on derived image features: application to genetic syndromes. PLoS One. 2014; 9(11):e109033. Balliu B, Würtz RP, Horsthemke B, Wieczorek D, Böhringer S. PMID: 25405460; PMCID: PMC4236018.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 6     Fields:    Translation:Humans
    31. Testing genetic association with rare and common variants in family data. Genet Epidemiol. 2014 Sep; 38 Suppl 1:S37-43. Chen H, Malzahn D, Balliu B, Li C, Bailey JN. PMID: 25112186; PMCID: PMC4324976.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 4     Fields:    Translation:Humans
    32. Combining information from linkage and association mapping for next-generation sequencing longitudinal family data. BMC Proc. 2014; 8(Suppl 1 Genetic Analysis Workshop 18Vanessa Olmo):S34. Balliu B, Uh HW, Tsonaka R, Boehringer S, Helmer Q, Houwing-Duistermaat JJ. PMID: 25519382; PMCID: PMC4143620.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 2  
    33. CHEK2*1100delC homozygosity in the Netherlands--prevalence and risk of breast and lung cancer. Eur J Hum Genet. 2014 Jan; 22(1):46-51. Huijts PE, Hollestelle A, Balliu B, Houwing-Duistermaat JJ, Meijers CM, Blom JC, Ozturk B, Krol-Warmerdam EM, Wijnen J, Berns EM, Martens JW, Seynaeve C, Kiemeney LA, van der Heijden HF, Tollenaar RA, Devilee P, van Asperen CJ. PMID: 23652375; PMCID: PMC3865411.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 15     Fields:    Translation:Humans
    34. Combining family and twin data in association studies to estimate the noninherited maternal antigens effect. Genet Epidemiol. 2012 Dec; 36(8):811-9. Balliu B, Tsonaka R, van der Woude D, Boehringer S, Houwing-Duistermaat JJ. PMID: 22851506.
      View in: PubMed   Mentions: 1     Fields:    Translation:Humans
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