Corey T. Watson, Ph.D.

Education: 

B.S., Department of Environmental Studies, Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington; 2004
Ph.D., Department of Biological Sciences, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada; 2012
Postdoctoral Fellowship, Departments of Psychiatry and Genetics & Genomic Sciences, Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai, New York, NY; 2015-2016

Current Positions: 

Assistant Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Louisville
Member, James Graham Brown Cancer Center 

Contact Information: 

Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Genetics
221A Delia Baxter Building
580 South Preston Street
University of Louisville
Louisville, KY 40202
Phone:  502/852-0322
Emal:   

Research Description: 

Our research interests span the fields of molecular, population, evolutionary, and disease genetics/epigenetics, using both human and animal model systems.  The primary projects in the lab are currently focused on characterizing and cataloguing antibody genetic diversity among human populations and laboratory mouse strains, and understanding how genetic/epigenetic variation influences antibody function and the development of the immune response.  Our ultimate aims are to explore how this information can be leveraged to inform our understanding of disease susceptibility and clinical health outcomes. 

Literature Cited: 

  1.  Arnaout RA, Prak ETL, Schwab N, Rubelt F; Adaptive Immune Receptor Repertoire Community*.  The future of blood testing is the immunome.  Frontiers in Immunology 2021 Mar 15;12:626793.  doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2021.626793.  PMID: 33790897.  PMCID: PMC8005722 [*Arnout RA, Arora R, Bashford-Rogers R, Breden F, Bukhari SAC. Corrie B, Cowell LG, Efroni S, Gooley C, Greiff V. Vander Heiden J, Koguchi Y, Langerak T, Lim TS, Prak, ETL, Mariotti-Ferrandiz D, Marquez S, Meysman P, Miho E, Motwani F. Nouri N, Pavlovic M, Rubelt F. Sandve GK, Schwab N, Snapkov I, Soto C.. Stervbo U, Trück J, van der Ham H-J, Watson C, Weber CR]
  2. Rodriguez OL, Gibson WS, Parks T, Emery M, Powell J, Strahl M, Deikus G, Auckland K, Eichler EE, Marasco WA, Sebra R, Sharp AJ, Smith ML, Bashir A, Watson CT.  A novel framework for characterizing genomic haplotype diversity in the human immunoglobulin heavy chain locus.  Frontiers inImmunology 2020 Sep 23;11:2136.  doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2020.02136.  PMID: 33072076.  PMCID: PMC7539625.
  3. Ford M, Haghshenas E, Watson CT, Sahinalp SC.  Genotyping and copy number analysis of immunoglobin heavy chain variable genes using long reads.  iScience 2020 Mar 27;23(3):100883.  doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2020.100883.  Epub 2020 Feb 4.  Erratum in: iScience 2020 Sep 4;23(9):101508.  PMID: 32109676.  PMCID: PMC7044747.
  4. Cirelli KM, Carnathan DG, Nogal B, Martin JT, Rodriguez OL, Upadhyay AA, Enemuo CA, Gebru EH, Choe Y, Viviano F, Nakao C, Pauthner MG, Reiss S, Cottrell CA, Smith ML, Bastidas R, Gibson W, Wolabaugh AN, Melo MB, Cossette B, Kumar V, Patel NB, Tokatlian T, Menis S, Kulp DW, Burton DR, Murrell B, Schief WR, Bosinger SE, Ward AB, Watson CT, Silvestri G, Irvine DJ, Crotty S.  Slow delivery immunization enhances HIV neutralizing antibody and germinal center responses via modulation of I mmunodominance.  Cell 2020 Jan 9;180(1):206.  doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2019.12.027.  Erratum for: Cell 2019 May 16;177(5):1153-1171.e28.  PMID: 31923396.  PMCID: PMC7009795.
  5. Watson CT, Kos JT, Gibson WS, Newman L, Deikus G, Busse CE, Smith ML, Jackson KJ, Collins AM.  A comparison of immunoglobulin IGHV, IGHD and IGHJ genes in wild-derived and classical inbred mouse strains.  Immunology & Cell Biology 2019 Nov;97(10):888-901.  doi: 10.1111/imcb.12288.  Epub 2019 Oct 6.  PMID: 31441114.
  6. Hardesty JE, Wahlang B, Falkner KC, Shi H, Jin J, Zhou Y, Wilkey DW, Merchant ML, Watson CT, Feng W, Morris AJ, Hennig B, Prough RA, Cave MC.  Proteomic analysis reveals novel mechanisms by which polychlorinated biphenyls compromise the liver promoting diet-induced steatohepatitis.  Journal of  Proteome Research 2019 Apr 5;18(4):1582-1594.  doi: 10.1021/acs.jproteome.8b00886.  Epub 2019 Mar 15.  PMID: 30807179.  PMCID: PMC7059562.
  7. Collins AM, Watson CT.  Immunoglobulin light chain gene rearrangements, receptor editing and the development of a self-tolerant antibody repertoire.  Frontiers in Immunology 2018 Oct 8;9:2249.  doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2018.02249.  PMID: 30349529.  PMCID: PMC6186787.
  8. Garg P, Joshi RS, Watson C, Sharp AJ.  A survey of inter-individual variation in DNA methylation identifies environmentally responsive co-regulated networks of epigenetic variation in the human genome.  PLoS Genetics 2018 Oct 1;14(10):e1007707.  doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1007707.  PMID: 30273333.  PMCID: PMC6181428.
  9. Barbosa M, Joshi RS, Garg P, Martin-Trujillo A, Patel N, Jadhav B, Watson CT, Gibson W, Chetnik K, Tessereau C, Mei H, De Rubeis S, Reichert J, Lopes F, Vissers LELM, Kleefstra T, Grice DE, Edelmann L, Soares G, Maciel P, Brunner HG, Buxbaum JD, Gelb BD, Sharp AJ.  Identification of rare de novo epigenetic variations in congenital disorders.  NatureCommunications 2018 May 25;9(1):2064.  doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-04540-x.  PMID: 29802345.  PMCID: PMC5970273.
  10. Rubelt F, Busse CE, Bukhari SAC, Bürckert JP, Mariotti-Ferrandiz E, Cowell LG, Watson CT, Marthandan N, Faison WJ, Hershberg U, Laserson U, Corrie BD, Davis MM, Peters B, Lefranc MP, Scott JK, Breden F; AIRR Community, Luning Prak ET, Kleinstein SH.  Adaptive Immune Receptor Repertoire Community recommendations for sharing immune-repertoire sequencing data.  NatureImmunology 2017 Nov 16;18(12):1274-1278.  doi: 10.1038/ni.3873.  PMID: 29144493.  PMCID: PMC5790180.
  11. Watson CT, Glanville J, Marasco WA.  The individual and population genetics of antibody immunity.  Trends in Immunology 2017 Jul;38(7):459-470.  doi: 10.1016/j.it.2017.04.003.  Epub 2017 May 20.  PMID: 28539189.  PMCID: PMC5656258.
  12. Watson CT, Roussos P, Garg P, Ho DJ, Azam N, Katsel PL, Haroutunian V, Sharp AJ.  Genome-wide DNA methylation profiling in the superior temporal gyrus reveals epigenetic signatures associated with Alzheimer's disease.  Genome Medicine 2016 Jan 19;8(1):5.  doi: 10.1186/s13073-015-0258-8.  PMID: 26803900.  PMCID: PMC4719699.
  13. Watson CT, Szutorisz H, Garg P, Martin Q, Landry JA, Sharp AJ, Hurd YL.  Genome-wide DNA methylation profiling reveals epigenetic changes in the rat nucleus accumbens associated with cross-generational effects of adolescent THC exposure.  Neuropsychopharmacology 2015 Dec;40(13):2993-3005.  doi: 10.1038/npp.2015.155.  Epub 2015 Jun 5.  PMID: 26044905.  PMCID: PMC4864634.
  14. Watson CT, Steinberg KM, Graves TA, Warren RL, Malig M, Schein J, Wilson RK, Holt RA, Eichler EE, Breden F.  Sequencing of the human IG light chain loci from a hydatidiform mole BAC library reveals locus-specific signatures of genetic diversity.  Genes & Immunity 2015 Jan-Feb;16(1):24-34.  doi: 10.1038/gene.2014.56.  Epub 2014 Oct 23.  PMID: 25338678.  PMCID: PMC4304971.
  15. Watson CT, Marques-Bonet T, Sharp AJ, Mefford HC.  The genetics of microdeletion and microduplication syndromes: an update.  Annual Review of Genomics & Human Genetics 2014;15:215-244.  doi: 10.1146/annurev-genom-091212-153408.  Epub 2014 Apr 16.  PMID: 24773319.  PMCID: PMC4476258.

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