Shah Lab

Summary¶

The Shah Lab is a research group based at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB), The University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. Led by Dr. Sonia Shah, the lab focuses on using human genomics and bioinformatics to understand disease mechanisms, predict disease risk, and identify novel therapeutic targets. Key areas of expertise include statistical genetics, transcriptome-wide association studies (TWAS), Mendelian randomization, and developing frameworks for in silico drug candidate prioritisation.

Research Contributions¶

The Shah Lab has made significant contributions to translating genome-wide association study (GWAS) findings into clinical opportunities: - TWAS-Based Drug Prioritisation: Developed and benchmarked frameworks for TWAS signature-matching against databases like the Connectivity Map. Their research has defined best-practice parameters for tissue models, similarity metrics, cell lines, and gene set sizes to optimize the recovery of known first-line treatments. - Cardiovascular and Inflammatory Diseases: Applied statistical genomics to study cardiovascular traits like LDL cholesterol and familial combined hyperlipidemia, as well as complex respiratory traits such as asthma. - Codebases and Tools: Maintained public tools and repositories like the DrugRepurposing Pipeline to facilitate reproducible, genetically-informed drug repositioning.

Citations¶

Institute for Molecular Bioscience, University of Queensland website: https://imb.uq.edu.au/sonia-shah (as of 2026-07-19)
Key Publication: Chauquet et al. (2026). From GWAS to drug: A framework for drug candidate prioritisation using a gene expression signature matching approach. medRxiv. Source paper: 2026.04.22.26349470v2.full.pdf