My professional career included more than 15 years at leading German research institutions but also several years in IT industry. I am Head of the Research Unit of Molecular Epidemiology (AME) at the Helmholtz Zentrum Munich. My major research interests are genetic, epigenetic and molecular epidemiology of cardiometabolic diseases as well as bioinformatics and biostatistics. I am developing strategies for the integrated analysis of high-dimensional data generated from various omics-technologies (genomics, epigenomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics). My research unit participated, and had for some phenotypes the lead, in multinational genome-wide meta-analysis consortia (GIANT, ENGAGE, DIAGRAM, MAGIC, CARDIoGRAM, CHARGE, etc.). During the last decade I was (co-)author of more than 300 peer-reviewed publications in leading international genetic and medical journals, among which more than 15 in Nature and more than 60 in Nature Genetics. These publications have been cited more than 27,000 times (H-index=77). According to a Thomson Reuters analysis of publications from the years 2004 to 2016, I have been selected three times as "Highly Cited Researcher" in the field of molecular biology & genetics in the years 2016, 2015, and 2014.I received my PhD in Statistics in 1998 from the Institute of Statistics at the University of Munich. My professional career included more than 15 years at leading German research institutions but also several years in IT industry. I am Head of the Research Unit of Molecular Epidemiology (AME) at the Helmholtz Zentrum Munich. My major research interests are genetic, epigenetic and molecular epidemiology of cardiometabolic diseases as well as bioinformatics and biostatistics. I am developing strategies for the integrated analysis of high-dimensional data generated from various omics-technologies (genomics, epigenomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics). My research unit participated, and had for some phenotypes the lead, in multinational genome-wide meta-analysis consortia (GIANT, ENGAGE, DIAGRAM, MAGIC, CARDIoGRAM, CHARGE, etc.). During the last decade I was (co-)author of more than 300 peer-reviewed publications in leading international genetic and medical journals, among which more than 15 in Nature and more than 60 in Nature Genetics. These publications have been cited more than 27,000 times (H-index=77). According to a Thomson Reuters analysis of publications from the years 2004 to 2016, I have been selected three times as "Highly Cited Researcher" in the field of molecular biology & genetics in the years 2016, 2015, and 2014.