Dr. Loes Olde Loohuis

Biography

Loes Olde Loohuis is an Assistant Professor-in-Residence in Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Her research focuses on elucidating the underlying molecular mechanisms of severe mental illness by utilizing developing computational approaches that leverage multi-level data. Prior to joining UCLA, she was a postdoctoral fellow at UCLA’s Center for Neurobehavioral Genetics, where she was awarded the K99/R00 grant to identify electronic health record genetic signatures that predict patients' depression and the development of bipolar disorder. At UCLA, her lab aims to characterize and predict psychiatric disease trajectories using genetic and high-dimensional phenotypic data, especially from electronic health records. The lab particularly focuses on studying Latin American populations to identify genetic and environmental risk factors that contribute to the cause and course of illness in admixed populations. Furthermore, she is co-leading the development of a National Institute of Mental Health funded biobank for Severe Mental Illness, known as Misión Origen, which aims to consist of 100,000 participants from the Paisa region of Colombia. Dr. Olde Loohuis is also part of the Populations Underrepresented in Mental Illness Association Studies (PUMAS), an international collaboration with investigators from South America and Africa for whole genome sequencing aimed at elucidating the genetics of severe mental illness across diverse ancestries and environments.

Research Interests