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Petretto Enrico Giuseppe

Associate Professor, Centre for Computational Biology

Director, Centre for Computational Biology

Associate Dean, Office of Research

Duke-NUS Medical School

Bio

Dr Enrico Petretto obtained his degree in Physical Chemistry in 1998 (University of Sassari, Italy), and then moved into computational data modeling, specializing in Statistical Genetics during his MSc in Molecular Medicine and Genetic Epidemiology awarded in 2000 (The University School for Advanced Studies IUSS Pavia, Italy), and then during his PhD, which was awarded in 2003 (University of Sassari, Italy). 
He then moved to Imperial College London, Faculty of Medicine, where he worked as Research Fellow. In 2007, Dr Petretto was awarded a 5-years competitive fellowship by Research Councils UK (RCUK), and at the same time he was promoted to Lecturer in Genomic Medicine. In 2009, he obtained a Career Development Award from the MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences (LMS), Imperial College London, and becomes Senior Lecturer in Genomic Medicine at Imperial College London. From 2009 until 2013, Dr Petretto was Member of the Academic Advisory Group for IT & Computing of MRC-LMS, Imperial College, leading and managing the core-Bioinformatics support service and IT & Computing department for the MRC-LMS of Imperial College. In 2012 he was promoted to Tenured Track Group Leader at the MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences of Imperial College. 

In 2014 Dr Petretto moved to Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore as Associated Professor with tenure where he leads a research program in Systems-Genetics. From 2020, Dr Petretto is also Theme Leader for Bioinformatics and Systems Genetics at the Institute of Molecular and Translational Cardiology (IMTC) for the study of Brugada Syndrome and Sudden Death, Policlinico San Donato University and Research Hospital in Milan (Italy), and Adjunct Professor at the Institute of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence, China Pharmaceutical University (CPU) in Nanjing (China). From 2021, Dr Petretto took the position of Director of the Centre for Computational Biology (CCB).

Enrico Petretto has developed a research programme in Systems Genetics to study the genetic regulation of cellular pathways and gene networks that drive human disease. His lab uses Systems Biology and integrative genomics approaches to identify new drug targets for various complex disease, including cardiometabolic (e.g., cardiomyopathies, Brugada Syndrome) and fibrotic disease, diabetic nephropathy, cancer and important brain disorders such as epilepsy and Alzheimer’s disease. The identified drug targets are then followed up experimentally in Petretto’s lab using several cellular and pre-clinical disease models.  

Enrico Petretto has published more than 130 papers in top tier journals such as Nature, Nature Genetics, Nature Communications, Nature Neuroscience, Nature Immunology, Cell, Circulation, European Heart Journal, etc., with more than 10,000 citations to date (see Google Scholar). 
Selected papers include: Integrated genomic approaches implicate osteoglycin (Ogn) in the regulation of left ventricular mass (Nature Genetics 2008); A trans-acting locus regulates an anti-viral expression network and type 1 diabetes risk (Nature 2010); Systems-genetics identifies Sestrin 3 as a regulator of a proconvulsant gene network in human epileptic hippocampus (Nature Communications 2015); Systems genetics identifies a convergent gene network for cognition and neurodevelopmental disease (Nature Neuroscience 2016); A predictive computational framework for direct reprogramming between human cell types (Nature Genetics 2016); IL11 is a critical determinant of cardiovascular fibrosis (Nature 2017); A systems-level framework for drug discovery identifies Csf1R as an anti-epileptic drug target (Nature Communications 2018); Changes in macrophage transcriptome associate with systemic sclerosis and mediate GSDMA contribution to disease risk (Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases 2018); WWP2 regulates pathological cardiac fibrosis by modulating SMAD2 signaling (Nature Communications 2019); A single-cell atlas of entorhinal cortex from individuals with Alzheimer's disease reveals cell-type-specific gene expression regulation (Nature Neuroscience 2019); Whole-genome sequencing of Finnish type 1 diabetic siblings discordant for kidney disease reveals DNA variants associated with diabetic nephropathy (Journal of the American Society of Nephrology 2020); Wnt-regulated lncRNA discovery enhanced by in vivo identification and CRISPRi functional validation (Genome Medicine 2020); Brugada Syndrome Genetics is Associated with Phenotype Severity (European Heart Journal 2020); EpiMogrify models H3K4me3 data to identify signaling molecules that improve cell fate control and maintenance (Cell Systems 2020); Transcriptional signature in microglia associated with Aβ plaque phagocytosis (Nature Communications 2021); WWP2 regulates pro-fibrogenic monocyte infiltration and activity in heart fibrosis (Nature Communications 2022).

Education

Doctor of Philosophy (Biochemistry)

University of Sassari, Italy

Master of Science (Statistical Genetics)

University of Pavia, Italy

Master Degree (Physical Chemistry)

University of Sassari, Italy

NUS Appointment(s)

Associate Dean of Research Informatics

Duke-NUS Medical School, Currently Active

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