Zeynep Coban Akdemir
Assistant Professor
512/391-2536
Reuel Stallones Building
1200 Pressler Street, Houston, TX 77030-3900
About
Dr. Zeynep Coban Akdemir is a computational biologist and Assistant Professor of Epidemiology and Human Genetics at UTHealth Houston. Her research focuses on applying large-scale genomics, RNA biology, and machine learning to uncover the genetic mechanisms underlying rare diseases, with an emphasis on nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) and novel variant interpretation frameworks. She leads federally funded projects through NHGRI GREGoR, NHLBI TOPMed, and the Simons Foundation, developing predictive tools that integrate whole-genome sequencing, transcriptomics, and functional genomic data to improve diagnosis and mechanistic understanding of Mendelian disorders and neurodevelopmental disease. Dr. Coban Akdemir received her Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences from UTHealth, where she investigated epigenetic mechanisms of hepatocyte cell identity during liver regeneration, and completed postdoctoral training in human genetics at Baylor College of Medicine, contributing to gene discovery and computational advances in Mendelian genomics. Her work has appeared in leading journals, including The American Journal of Human Genetics, Genome Medicine, Cell Genomics, and Genetics in Medicine. She is deeply committed to mentoring the next generation of scientists and to advancing precision medicine through collaborative, data-driven discovery
Center Affiliation
Research Interests
- Biostatistics and Data Science
- Genetics and Multi-omics