Im Lab

Summary

The Im Lab is a research group led by Hae Kyung Im in the Section of Genetic Medicine, Department of Medicine at the University of Chicago. The lab develops statistical and computational methods to translate genetic findings into functional insights, specializing in transcriptome-wide association studies (TWAS) and the development of genomic prediction tools.

Key Projects and Contributions

• PredictDB: A centralized database of tissue-specific gene expression prediction models trained on GTEx and other genomic datasets (see PredictDB).
• MetaXcan: Development of the MetaXcan / S-PrediXcan suite for mapping associations between imputed molecular traits and diseases (see MetaXcan).
• Methodological Development: Pioneering methods that link GWAS summary statistics with molecular phenotypes to uncover disease mechanisms without requiring individual-level data.

Citations

• Im Lab Website: https://hakyimlab.org/ (as of 2026-07-19)
• Barbeira, A.N., Dickinson, S.P., Bonazzola, R., Zheng, J., Wheeler, H.E., Torres, J.M., et al. (2018). Exploring the phenotypic consequences of tissue specific gene expression variation inferred from GWAS summary statistics. Nature Communications, 9, 1825.. Source paper: 41467_2018_Article_3621.pdf
• Barbeira, A.N., Pividori, M., Zheng, J., Wheeler, H.E., Nicolae, D.L., & Im, H.K. (2019). Integrating predicted transcriptome from multiple tissues improves association detection. PLoS Genetics, 15(1), e1007889.. Source paper: journal. pgen.1007889.pdf