Hello! My name is Luis Lauro Aizpuru-Vargas and I am currently a PhD student in Computer Science (Bioinformatics Track) at Tecnológico de Monterrey. My research project focuses on studying the associations between genetic variants and phenotypes. I am attempting to implement a new model to more accurately predict genetic disease risk. This model is called the “Omnigenic Model” and it was conceptually proposed by Boyle, Li and Pritchard from Stanford University in 2017. To date, there are not many publications exploring the application of this model to a genetic risk score. The “missing heritability” problem remains a challenge for precision medicine.
I am part of the research group of Prof. Victor Treviño. He is the scientific leader of Project OriGen which aims to be the largest genetic database in Latin America with 100,000 DNA samples of Mexicans. There is great interest in the bioinformatics community to study the particular genetic predispositions of Latinos towards diseases. This is mainly due to the fact that the gene-disease causality findings in people of primarily European and East Asian descent cannot be assumed to be true in other populations.
In March 2025, Tec de Monterrey and The University of Texas at Austin launched the OriGen Health Research Center. This center aims to leverage OriGen’s biobank and UT’s expertize in machine learning to “advance the health of millions of people in the Americas, including an estimated 65 million Latinos in the United States”.