is a Distinguished Professor and Director of the Quantitative Medicine and Systems Biology Division at Translational Genomics Institute, an affiliate of The City of Hope. In addition, as a leader in the design and analysis of studies of longevity, Nicholas is Scientific Director for the National Institute of Health’s National Institute of Aging-sponsored Longevity Consortium.
Prior to his current positions, Dr. Schork was Professor and Director of Human Biology at the J. Craig Venter Institute and previously Professor, Molecular and Experimental Medicine, at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) and Director of Bioinformatics and Biostatistics for the Scripps Translational Science Institute (STSI). Dr. Schork has also held faculty appointments at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) and Harvard University. Between 1999 and 2000 Dr. Schork took a leave of absence from CWRU to conduct research as Vice President of Statistical Genomics at the French Biotechnology company, Genset, where he helped guide efforts to construct the first high-density map of genetic variation in the human genome.
Dr. Schork has published over 550 articles in many areas of biomedical and translation science, including articles detailing novel methodologies and applications leveraging integrated approaches to disease diagnosis, treatment, and prevention as well as clinical trials design. He also has a long history of collaborative and consortium-related research in which he has contributed analysis methodology and applied data analysis expertise. For example, Dr. Schork is the scientific director of the current NIA-funded Longevity Consortium, whose goals are to identify and characterize factors that contribute to human longevity. Dr. Schork has 9 patents associated with genetic analysis methodology, been involved with more than 10 start-up companies, and has mentored over 75 students and post-doctoral fellows.
Did you know?
Dr. Schork’s interest and expertise are quantitative and integrated human genetics and genomics, especially the design and implementation of methodologies to dissect the genetic basis of complex traits and diseases.
Literature
Weder AB, Sekkarie MA, Takiyyuddin M, Schork NJ, Julius S: Antihypertensive and hypotensive effects of a trial natriuretic factor in men. Hypertension 1987; 10:582-9.
Johnson EH, Schork NJ, Spielberger CD: Emotional and familial determinants of elevated blood pressure in black and white adolescent females. J Psychosom Res 1987; 31:731-41.
Egan BM, Panis R, Hinderliter A, Schork N, Julius S: Mechanism of increased alpha-adrenergic vasoconstriction in human essential hypertension. J Clin Invest 1987; 80:812-7.
Schork, NJ and Schork MA: Skewness and mixtures of normal distributions. Communications in Statistics - Theory and Methods 1988; 17:3951-69.
Egan BM, Schork N, Panis R, Hinderliter A: Vascular structure enhances regional resistance responses in mild essential hypertension. J Hypertens 1988; 6:41-8.
Egan BM, Conlon ME, Campbell R, Schork N, Zweifler A, Julius S: Effects of ketanserin on blood pressure and platelet aggregation in elderly men with mild hypertension. Am J Hypertens 1988; 1:324S-30S.
Julius S, Schork N and Schork A: Sympathetic hyperactivity in early stages of hypertension: the Ann Arbor data set. J Cardiovasc Pharmacol 1988; 12:S121-9.
Weder AB and Schork NJ: Mixture analysis of erythrocyte lithium-sodium countertransport and blood pressure. Hypertension 1988; 13:145-50.
Gupta MA, Gupta AK, Kirkby S, Weiner HK, Mace TM, Schork NJ, Johnson EH, Ellis CN, Voorhees JJ: Pruritus in psoriasis: A prospective study of some psychiatric and dermatologic correlates. Arch Dermatol 1988; 124:1052-7.
Gupta MA, Gupta AK, Kirkby S, Schork NJ, Gorr SK, Ellis CN, Voorhees JJ: A psychocutaneous profile of psoriasis patients who are stress reactors: A study of 127 patients. Gen Hosp Psychiatry 1989; 11:166-73.
Schork NJ and Schork MA: Testing separate families of segregation hypotheses: bootstrap methods. Am J Hum Genet 1989; 45:803-13.
Gupta MA, Gupta AK, Kirkby S, Schork NJ, Weiner HK, Ellis CN, Voorhees JJ: Pruritus associated with nocturnal wakenings: organic or psychogenic? J Am Acad Dermatol 1989; 21:479-84.
Egan BM, Schork NJ, Weder AB: Regional hemodynamic abnormalities in overweight men: focus on alpha-adrenergic vascular responses. Am J Hypertens 1989; 2:428-34.
Kjeldsen SE, Schork NJ, Leren P, Eide IK: Arterial plasma norepinephrine correlates to blood pressure in middle-aged men with sustained essential hypertension. Am Heart J 1989; 118:775-81.
Mejia AD, Egan BM, Schork NJ, Zweifler AJ: Artefacts in measurement of blood pressure and lack of target organ involvement in the assessment of patients with treatment-resistant hypertension. Ann Intern Med 1990; 112:270-7.
Schork NJ, Weder AB, Schork MA, Bassett DR, Julius S: Disease entities, mixed multi-normal distributions, and the role of the hyperkinetic state in the pathogenesis of hypertension. Stat Med 1990; 9:301-14.
Schork NJ, Weder AB, Schork MA: On the asymmetry of biological frequency distributions. Genet Epidemiol 1990; 7:427-46.
Mejia AD, Julius S, Jones KA, Schork NJ, Kneisley J: The Tecumseh Blood Pressure Study: normative data on blood pressure self-determination. Arch Intern Med 1990; 150:1209-13.
Kneisley; J, Schork N, Julius S: Predictors of blood pressure and hypertension in Tecumseh, Michigan. Clin Exp Hypertens A 1990; 12:693-708.
Julius S, Jamerson K, Mejia A, Krause L, Schork N, Jones K: The association of borderline hypertension with target organ changes and higher coronary risk: Tecumseh Blood Pressure Study. JAMA 1990; 264:354-8.
Gupta MA, Gupta AK, Schork NJ, Ellis CN, Voorhees JJ: The aging face: A psychocutaneous perspective. J Dermatol Surg Oncol 1990; 16:902-4.
Gupta MA, Gupta AK, Schork NJ, Ellis CN, Voorhees JJ: Psychiatric aspects of the treatment of mild to moderate acne: some preliminary observations. Int J Dermatol 1990; 29:719-21.
Julius S, Mejia A, Jones K, Krause L, Schork N, van de Ven C, Johnson E, Petrin J, Sekkarie MA, Kjeldsen SE, Schmouder R, Gupta R, Ferraro J, Nazzaro P and Weissfeld J: “White coat” versus “sustained” borderline hypertension in Tecumseh, Michigan. Hypertension 1990; 16:617-23.
Schork NJ and Schork MA: Histograms: multimodal or poorly constructed? (Letter to the Editor) , Am J Hum Genet 1990; 46:396-7.
Julius S, Jones K, Schork N, Johnson E, Krause L, Nazzaro P, Zemva A: Independence of pressure reactivity from blood pressure levels in Tecumseh, Michigan. Hypertension 1991; 17(Supplement III):12-21.
Schork NJ: Efficient computation of patterned covariance matrix mixed models in quantitative segregation analysis. Genet Epidemiol 1991; 8:29-46.
Weder AB, Schork NJ, Krause L, Julius S: Red blood cell lithium-sodium countertransport in the Tecumseh blood pressure study. Hypertension 1991; 17:652-60.
Julius S, Krause L, Schork N, Mejia AD, Jones KA, van de Ven C, Johnson EH, Sekkarie MA, Kjeldsen SE, Petrin J, Schmouder R, Gupta R, Ferraro J, Nazzaro P and Weissfeld J: Hyperkinetic borderline hypertension in Tecumseh, Michigan. J Hypertens 1991; 9:77-84.
Weder AB. Schork NJ, Julius S: Linkage of MN locus and erythrocyte lithium-sodium countertransport in Tecumseh, Michigan. Hypertension 1991; 17:977-81.
Gupta MA, Goldfarb MT, Schork NJ, Weiss JS, Gupta AK, Ellis CN and Voorhees JJ: Treatment of mildly to moderately photoaged skin with topical tretinoin has a favorable psychosocial effect: a prospective study. J Am Acad Dermatol 1991; 24:780-1.
Schork NJ: Extended pedigree patterned covariance matrix mixed models for quantitative phenotype analysis. Genet Epidemiol 1992; 9:73-86.
Schork NJ: Detection of genetic heterogeneity for complex quantitative phenotypes. Genet Epidemiol 1992; 9:207-23.
Julius S, Jamerson K, Gudbrandsson T, Schork N: White coat hypertension: a follow-up. Clin Exp Hypertens A. 1992; 14:45-53.
Gudbrandsson T, Julius S, Krause L, Jamerson K, Randall OS, Schork N, Weder A: Correlates of the estimated arterial compliance in the population of Tecumseh, Michigan. Blood Press 1992; 1:27-34.
Jamerson KA, Schork NJ, Julius S: Effect of home blood pressure and gender on estimates of the familial aggregation of blood pressure: The Tecumseh Blood Pressure Study. Hypertension 1992; 20:314-8.
Bretz WA, Krahn DD, Drury M, Schork N, Loesche WJ: Effects of fluoxetine on the oral environment of bulimics. Oral Microbiol Immunol 1993; 8:62-4.
Gupta MA, Schork NJ, and Dhaliwal JS: Stature, drive for thinness and body dissatisfaction: a study of males and females from a non clinical sample. Can J Psychiatry 1993; 38:59-61.
Gupta MA, Schork NJ, Gupta AK, Kirkby S, Ellis CN: Suicidal ideation in psoriasis. Int J Dermatol 1993; 32:188-90.
Gupta MA, Schork NJ, Gupta AK and Ellis CN: Alcohol intake and treatment responsiveness of psoriasis: a prospective study. J Am Acad Dermatol 1993; 28:730-2.
Schork NJ, Schork MA: The relative efficiency and power of small-pedigree studies of the heritability of a quantitative trait. Hum Hered 1993; 43: 1-11.
Schork NJ: The design and use of variance component models in the analysis of human quantitative pedigree data. Biometrical J 1993; 35:387-405.
Schork NJ and Schork MA: The effect of pairwise correlated observations on likelihood ratio tests for the difference between two means. Communications in Statistics—Theory and Methods. 1993; 22:2609-18.
Bretz WA, Eklund SA, Radicchi R, Schork MA, Schork N, Schottenfeld D, Lopatin DE, Loesche WJ: The use of a rapid enzymatic assay in the field for the detection of infections associated with adult periodontitis. J Public Health Dent 1993; 53:235-40.
Topol EJ, Ellis SG, Cosgrove DM, Bates ER, Muller DW, Schork NJ, Schork MA, Loop FD: Analysis of coronary angioplasty practice in the United States with an insurance-claims data base. Circulation 1993; 87: 1489-97.
Schork NJ: Combining Monte Carlo and Cox tests of non-nested hypotheses. Communications in Statistics - Simulation and Computation 1993; 22:939-54.
Schork NJ, Boehnke M, Terwilliger J, Ott J: Two-trait-locus linkage analysis: a powerful strategy for mapping complex genetic traits. Am J Hum Genet 1993; 53:1127-36.
Schork NJ: Extended multipoint identity-by-descent analysis of human quantitative traits: efficiency, power, and modeling considerations. Am J Hum Genet 1993; 53:1306-19.
Gupta MA, Schork NJ: Aging-related concerns and body image: possible future implications for eating disorders. Int J Eat Disord 1993; 14:481-6.
Schork NJ, Guo SW: Pedigree models for complex human traits involving the mitochondrial genome. Am J Hum Genet 1993; 53:1320-37.
Gupta MA, Schork NJ, Ellis CN: Psychosocial correlates of the treatment of photodamaged skin with topical retinoic acid: a prospective controlled study. J Am Acad Dermatol 1994; 30:969-72.
Schork NJ, Weder AB, Trevisan M, Laurenzi M: The contribution of pleiotropy to blood pressure and body-mass index variation: the Gubbio Study. Am J Hum Genet 1994; 54:361-73.
Weder AB, Schork NJ: Adaptation, Allometry, and Hypertension. Hypertension 1994; 24:145-56.
Gupta MA, Gupta AK, Schork NJ, Ellis CN: Depression modulates prutitis perception: a study of prutitis in psoriasis, atopic dermatitis, and chronic idiopathic urticaria. Psychosom Med 1994; 56:36-40.
Gudbrandsson T, Julius S, Jamerson K, Smith S, Krause L, Schork N: Recreational exercise and cardiovascular status in the rural community of Tecumseh, Michigan. Blood Pres 1994; 3:178-84.
Schork NJ, Jokelainen P, Grant EJ, Schork MA, Weder AB: Relationship of growth and blood pressure in inbred rats. Am J Psychiol 1994; 266:R702-8.
Lander ES, Schork NJ: Genetic dissection of complex traits. Science 1994; 265:2037-48.
Marcus R, Krause L, Weder AB, Dominguez-Meja A, Schork NJ and Julius S: Sex-specific determinants of increased left ventricular mass in the Tecumseh Blood Pressure Study. Circulation 1994; 90:928-36.
Schork NJ, Boehnke M, Terwilliger JD, Ott J. Reply to Sham et al. (Letter to the Editor) , Am J Hum Genet 1994; 5:856-8.
Schork NJ: Sampling guidelines for testing secondary attack rates associated with short-latency infectious diseases. Stat Med 1994; 13:1563-73.
Smith S, Julius S, Jamerson K, Amerena J, Schork N: Hematocrit levels and physiologic factors in relationship to cardiovascular risk in Tecumseh, Michigan. J Hypertens 1994; 12:455-62.
Gupta MA, Gupta AK, Schork NJ: Psychosomatic study of self-excoriative behavior among male acne patients: preliminary observations. Int J Dermatol 1994; 33:846-8.
Gupta MA, Gupta AK, Schork NJ, Watteel GN. Perceived touch deprivation and body image: some observations among eating disordered and non-clinical subjects. J Psychosom Res 1995; 39:459-64.
Gupta MA, Schork NJ. Touch deprivation has an adverse effect on body image: some preliminary observations. Int J Eat Disord 1995; 17:185-9.
Davidson AO, Schork NJ, Jacques BC, Kelman AW, Sutcliffe RG, Reid JL, Dominiczak AF. Blood pressure in genetically hypertensive rats: Influence of the Y chromosome. Hypertension 1995; 26:452-9.
McAleer MA, Reifsnyder P, Palmer SM, Prochazka M, Love JM, Copeman JB, Powell EE, Rodrigues NR, Prins JB, Serreze DV, DeLarato NH, Wicker LS, Peterson LB, Schork NJ, Todd JA, Leiter EH. Crosses of NOD mice with the related NON strain: A polygenic model for type I diabetes. Diabetes 1995; 44:1186-95.
Thibbonier M, Schork NJ. The genetics of hypertension. Curr Opin Genet Dev 1995; 5:362-70.
Schork NJ, Krieger JE, Trolliet MR, Franchini KG, Koike G, Krieger EM, Lander ES, Dzau VJ, Jacob HJ. A biometrical genome search in rats reveals the multigenic basis of blood pressure variation. Genome Res 1995; 5:164-72.
Letts VA, Schork NJ, Copp AJ, Bernfield M, Frankel WN. A curly-tail modifier locus, mct1, on mouse chromosome 17. Genomics 1995; 29:719-24.
Ghosh S, Schork NJ: Genetic analysis of NIDDM. The study of quantitative traits. Diabetes 1996; 45:1-14.
Schork NJ, Allison DB, Thiel B: Mixture Distributions in Human Genetics Research. Stat Methods Med Res 1996; 5:155-78.
Wolf NG, Abdul-Karim FW, Schork NJ, Schwartz S: Origins of heterogenous ovarian carcinomas: A molecular cytogenetic analysis of histologically benign, low malignant potential, and fully malignant components. Am J Pathol 1996; 149: 511-20.
Witte JS, Elston RC, Schork NJ: Genetic dissection of complex traits. (Letter to the Editor) . Nat Genet 1996; 12:3556.
Schork NJ, Weder AB: The use of genetic information in large-scale clinical trials: Applications to Alzheimer research. Alzheimer Dis Assoc Disord 1996; 10 Suppl 1:22-6.
Krause BR, Schork NJ, Kieft KA, Smith MP, Maciejko JJ: High correlation but lack of agreement between direct high-performance gel chromatography analysis and conventional indirect methods for determining lipoprotein cholesterol. Clin Chem 1996; 42:1996-2001.
Eicher EM, Washburn LL, Schork NJ, Lee BK, Shown EP, Xu X, Dredge RD, Pringle MJ, Page DC: Sex-determining genes on mouse autosomes identified by linkage analysis of C57BL/6J-YPOS sex reversal. Nat Genet 1996; 14:206-9.
Schork NJ, Nath SP, Lindpaintner K, Jacob HJ: Extensions to quantitative trait locus mapping in experimental organisms. Hypertension 1996; 28:1104-11.
Gupta MA, Gupta AK, Schork NJ. Psychological factors affecting self-excoriative behavior in women with mild-tomoderate facial acne vulgaris. Psychosomatics 1996; 37:127-30.
Frankel WN, Schork NJ: Who's afraid of epistasis? Nat Genet 1996; 14:371-3.
Schork NJ: Genetically complex cardiovascular traits. Origins, problems, and potential solutions. Hypertension 1997; 29:145-9.
Salvador SL, Grisi MF, Romanelli RG, Silva Netto CR, Schork NJ, Bretz WA: Similarities of periodontal clinical and microbiological parameters in mother-child pairs. Braz Dent J 1997; 8:99-104.
Cassidy SB, Forsythe M, Heeger S, Nicholls RD, Schork NJ, Benn P, Schwartz S: Comparison of phenotype between patients with Prader-Willi Syndrome due to deletion 15q and uniparental disomy 15. Am J Med Genet 1997; 68:433-40.
Ferraro TN, Golden GT, Smith GG, Schork NJ, St Jean P, Ballas C, Choi H, Berrettini WH: Mapping murine loci for seizure response to kianic acid. Mamm Genome 1997; 8:200-8.
Strohl KP, Thomas AJ, St Jean P, Schlenker EH, Koletsky RJ, Schork NJ: Ventilation and metabolism among rat strains. J Appl Physiol 1997; 82:317-23.
Beebe AM, Mauze S, Schork NJ, Coffman RL: Serial backcross mapping of multiple loci associated with resistance to Leishmania major in mice. Immunity 1997; 6:551-7.
Allison DB, Schork NJ: Selected methodological issues in meiotic mapping of obesity genes in humans: issues of power and efficiency. Behav Genet 1997; 27:401-21.
Schork NJ, Xu X: Sibpairs vs. Pedigrees: what are the advantages? Diabetes Reviews 1997; 5:116-22.
Xu X, Schork NJ: Linking genes and environmental exposure: why China presents special opportunities. Cancer Causes Control 1997; 8:518-23.
Schork NJ: Genetics of complex disease: approaches, problems, and solutions. Am J Respir Crit Care Med 1997; 156:S103-9.
Allison DB, Heo M, Schork NJ, Wong SL, Elston RC. Extreme selection strategies in gene mapping studies of oligogenic quantitative traits do not always increase power. Hum Hered 1998; 48:97-107.
Schork NJ, Schork CM: Issues and Strategies in the Genetic Analysis of Alcoholism and Related Addictive Behaviors. Alcohol 1998; 16:71-83.
Schork NJ, Thiel B, St Jean P: Linkage analysis, kinship, and the short-term evolution of chromosomes. J Exp Zool 1998; 282:133-49.
Schork NJ, Cardon LR, Xu X. The future of genetic epidemiology. Trends Genet 1998; 14:266-72.
Allison DB, Thiel B, St Jean P, Elston RC, Infante MC, Schork NJ: Multiple phenotype modeling in gene-mapping studies of quantitative traits: ower advantages. Am J Hum Genet 1998; 63:1190-201.
Herrera VL, Xie HX, Lopez, LV, Schork NJ, Ruiz-Opazo N: The alpha1 Na,K-ATPase gene is a susceptibility hypertension gene in the Dahl salt-sensitive HSD rat. J Clin Invest 1998; 102:1102-11.
Ginns EI, St. Jean P, Philibert RA, Galdzicka M, Damschroder-Williams P, Long R, Ingraham L, Dalwaldi H, Murray M, Ehlert M, Paul S, Remortel B, Patel A, Anderson M, Dymarskaia I, Martin B, Stubblefield B, Falls K, Keith T, Fann C, Thiel B, Lacy LG, Allen C, Hostetter AM, Ott J, Elston RC, Schork NJ, Egeland JA, Paul SM. A genome-wide search for chromosomal loci linked to mental health wellness in relatives at high risk for bipolar disorder among the old order Amish. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 1998; 95:15531-36.
Faust, C, Lawson KA, Schork NJ, Thiel B, Magnuson T. The Polycomb-group gene eed is required for normal morphogenetic movements during gastrulation in the mouse embryo. Development 1998; 125: 4495-506.
Anderson NH, Devlin AM, Graham D, Morton JJ, Hamilton CA, Reid JL, Schork NJ, Dominiczak AF: Telemetry for cardiovascular monitoring in a pharmacological study: new approaches to data analysis. Hypertension 1999; 33:248-55
Bix M, Wang ZE, Thiel B, Schork NJ, Locksley RM: Genetic regulation of commitment to interleukin 4 production by a CD4(+) T cell-intrinsic mechanism. J Exp Med 1998; 188:2289-99.
Xu X, Rogus JJ, Terwedow HA, Yang J, Wang Z, Chen C, Niu T, Wang B, Xu H, Weiss S, Schork NJ, Fang Z. An Extreme-Sib-Pair Genome Scan for Genes Regulating Blood Pressure. Am J Hum Genet 1999; 64:1694-701.
Schork NJ: Review of ‘Angiotensin Genotype, Sodium Reduction, Weight Loss, and Prevention of Hypertension: Trials of Hypertension Prevention, Phase II’. Curr Hypertens Rep 1999; 1:13-14.