Cornelis Blauwendraat, PhD

Dr. Cornelis Blauwendraat is the Chief Data Strategy Officer of the Coalition for Aligning Science (CAS), where he provides strategic guidance on the organization’s data strategy and ensures that data assets are used effectively to achieve CAS’s goals across the initiatives under the Coalition’s management. He also serves as one of the leads for the Global Parkinson’s Genetics Program (GP2) which is a resource initiative of the Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s (ASAP), aiming to dramatically expand our understanding of the genetic basis of PD and to make that knowledge globally relevant. Previously, Dr. Blauwendraat was a Stadtman Investigator at National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Aging on the Bethesda campus. While there, his lab worked on dissecting the genetic basis of neurodegenerative disorders including Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease using large omics datasets with the goal of understanding disease mechanisms and identifying potential future therapeutic targets. Dr. Blauwendraat received his MSc in Biomedical Sciences from VU University, Netherlands and his PhD in Neuroscience from University of Tübingen, Germany. Both his MSc and PhD were focused on dissecting the complex genetic architecture across neurodegenerative diseases.