Masahiro Kanai (金井 仁弘)

I am a Research Fellow at Dr. Ramnik Xavier Lab, Massachusetts General Hospital & Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Prior to joining the lab, I completed Ph.D. in Biomedical Informatics at Harvard University, co-advised by Drs. Mark Daly and Hilary Finucane, the Analytic and Translational Genetics Unit. I received fellowships from the Nakajima Foundation and the Masason Foundation.

As a statistical geneticist, my research focuses on cross-population analysis of complex diseases and traits to better understand their genetic architecture and diversity across multiple populations. In my thesis project, I created a comprehensive atlas of putative causal variants from multiple large-scale biobanks to gain insights from complex trait fine-mapping across diverse populations. Prior to joining ATGU, I completed B.S. degree in Japan, where I worked closely with Dr. Yukinori Okada to study genetics of complex traits in the Japanese population using the BioBank Japan data.

My curriculum vitae can be found here.

News

Mar 18, 2024 The Pan-UKBB flagship manuscript (*Karczewski, KJ., *Gupta, R., *Kanai, M., et al.) is now available at medRxiv! :tada:
Sep 6, 2023 Kanai, M., The COVID-19 Host Genetics Initiative. (2023) is now published in Nature! :tada:
Nov 5, 2022 Kanai, M. et al. (2022) is now published in Cell Genomics! :tada:
Apr 7, 2022 *Weissbrod, O., *Kanai, M., *Shi, H. et al. (2022) is now published in Nature Genetics! :tada:
Sep 30, 2021 Added *Sakaue, S & *Kanai, M. et al. (2021).

Selected Publications and Preprints [full list]

Link to Google Scholar | ORCID | PubMed

* denotes equal contribution

  1. *Karczewski, K. J., *Gupta, R., *Kanai, M., ..., Lu, W., Tsuo, K., Wang, Y., Walters, R. K., Turley, P., Callier, S., Baya, N., Palmer, D. S., Goldstein, J. I., Sarma, G., Solomonson, M., Cheng, N., Bryant, S., Churchhouse, C., Cusick, C. M., Poterba, T., Compitello, J., King, D., Zhou, W., Seed, C., Finucane, H. K., Daly, M. J., Neale, B. M., Atkinson, E. G., and Martin, A. R. [Show fewer authors]
    medRxiv (2024)
  2. Kanai, M., Elzur, R., Zhou, W., ..., Global Biobank Meta-analysis Initiative., Daly, M. J., and Finucane, H. K. [Show fewer authors]
    Cell Genomics 2, 100210 (2022)
  3. *Weissbrod, O., *Kanai, M., *Shi, H., ..., Gazal, S., Peyrot, W. J., Khera, A. V., Okada, Y., The Biobank Japan Project., Martin, A. R., Finucane, H. K., and Price, A. L. [Show fewer authors]
    Nature Genetics 54, 450–458 (2022)
  4. Kanai, M., Ulirsch, J. C., Karjalainen, J., ..., Kurki, M., Karczewski, K. J., Fauman, E. B., Wang, Q. S., Jacobs, H., Aguet, F., Ardlie, K. G., Kerimov, N., Alasoo, K., Benner, C., Ishigaki, K., Sakaue, S., Reilly, S., The BioBank Japan Project., FinnGen., Kamatani, Y., Matsuda, K., Palotie, A., Neale, B. M., Tewhey, R., Sabeti, P. C., Okada, Y., Daly, M. J., and Finucane, H. K. [Show fewer authors]
    medRxiv (2021)
  5. *Sakaue, S., *Kanai, M., Tanigawa, Y., ..., Karjalainen, J., Kurki, M., Koshiba, S., Narita, A., Konuma, T., Yamamoto, K., Akiyama, M., Ishigaki, K., Suzuki, A., Suzuki, K., Obara, W., Yamaji, K., Takahashi, K., Asai, S., Takahashi, Y., Suzuki, T., Shinozaki, N., Yamaguchi, H., Minami, S., Murayama, S., Yoshimori, K., Nagayama, S., Obata, D., Higashiyama, M., Masumoto, A., Koretsune, Y., Ito, K., Terao, C., Yamauchi, T., Komuro, I., Kadowaki, T., Tamiya, G., Yamamoto, M., Nakamura, Y., Kubo, M., Murakami, Y., Yamamoto, K., Kamatani, Y., Palotie, A., Rivas, M. A., Daly, M. J., Matsuda, K., and Okada, Y. [Show fewer authors]
    Nature Genetics 53, 1415–1424 (2021)
  6. The COVID-19 Host Genetics Initiative.
    Nature 600, 472–477 (2021)
  7. *Sakaue, S., *Kanai, M., Karjalainen, J., ..., Akiyama, M., Kurki, M., Matoba, N., Takahashi, A., Hirata, M., Kubo, M., Matsuda, K., Murakami, Y., Daly, M. J., Kamatani, Y., and Okada, Y. [Show fewer authors]
    Nature Medicine 26, 542–548 (2020)
  8. Martin, A. R., Kanai, M., Kamatani, Y., ..., Okada, Y., Neale, B. M., and Daly, M. J. [Show fewer authors]
    Nature Genetics 51, 584–591 (2019)
  9. Kanai, M., Akiyama, M., Takahashi, A., ..., Matoba, N., Momozawa, Y., Ikeda, M., Iwata, N., Ikegawa, S., Hirata, M., Matsuda, K., Kubo, M., Okada, Y., and Kamatani, Y. [Show fewer authors]
    Nature Genetics 50, 390–400 (2018)