Lars Bertram, M.D.

Professor of Genome Analytics and Head, Lübeck Interdisciplinary Platform for Genome Analytics (LIGA), University of Lübeck 


Lars Bertram graduated from medical school at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, in 1997 and began his clinical training at the Alzheimer Centre of the Klinikum rechts der Isar in Munich. In 1999, he joined the Genetics and Aging Research Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), where he was appointed to the faculty of Harvard Medical School as Assistant Professor of Neurology in 2004. In 2008, Dr. Bertram moved back to Germany, where he founded the Neuropsychiatric Genetics Group in the Department of Vertebrate Genomics at the Max-Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics (MPIMG) in Berlin. In 2014, he was appointed Professor of Genome Analytics in the Medical Faculty at the University of Lübeck, Germany, where he directs the Lübeck Interdisciplinary Platform for Genome Analytics (LIGA). From 2013 to 2017, Dr. Bertram held an appointment as Reader in Neurogenetics at Imperial College London, UK, and from 2018-2022, he served as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Oslo, Norway.

Scientifically, Dr. Bertram’s expertise lies in mapping and characterizing complex disease genes, predominantly in neuropsychiatric diseases and aging. In addition to his laboratory work, Dr. Bertram has pioneered the development of bioinformatics approaches that systematically and quantitatively integrate large-scale genetic data for phenotypes such as Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia, Parkinson’s disease, and multiple sclerosis. Currently, he is leading several projects that apply “next-generation sequencing” to decipher the genomic, epigenomic, and transcriptomic architecture of complex traits.

Dr. Bertram has co-authored over 300 peer-reviewed scientific articles, the majority of which have been published in the leading journals of basic science, genetics, and medicine. During his career, he received numerous awards and honors, e.g., from the Harvard Center for Neurodegeneration and Repair, the ERASMUS Foundation, the National Alliance on Research in Depression and Schizophrenia (NARSAD), the Alzheimer Research Forum, and the Hans & Ilse Breuer Stiftung for Alzheimer’s Research.

Visit the Lübeck Interdisciplinary Platform for Genome Analytics (LIGA) website.

Funded Research

These projects were made possible from Cure Alzheimer's Fund support.

Selected Publications

These published papers resulted from Cure Alzheimer’s Fund support.

Morgan, S. L., Naderi, P., Koler, K., Pita-Juarez, Y., Prokopenko, D., Vlachos, I. S., Tanzi, R. E., Bertram, L., & Hide, W. A. Most Pathways Can Be Related to the Pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s Disease, Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, June 24, 2022, Read More

Bertram, L., & Tanzi, R. E. Alzheimer’s disease risk genes: 29 and counting, Nature Reviews Neurology, March 4, 2019, Read More

Sarajärvi, T., Tuusa, J. T., Haapasalo, A., Lackman, J. J., Sormunen, R., Helisalmi, S., Roehr, J. T., Parrado, A. R., Mäkinen, P., Bertram, L., Soininen, H., Tanzi, R. E., Petäjä-Repo, U. E., & Hiltunen, M. Cysteine 27 variant of the delta-opioid receptor affects amyloid precursor protein processing through altered endocytic trafficking, Molecular and Cellular Biology, April 4, 2011, Read More

Viswanathan, J., Haapasalo, A., Kurkinen, K. M., Natunen, T., Mäkinen, P., Bertram, L., Soininen, H., Tanzi, R. E., & Hiltunen, M. Ubiquilin-1 modulates gamma-secretase-mediated epsilon-site cleavage in neuronal cells, Biochemsitry, May 10, 2013, Read More

Kavvoura, F. K., McQueen, M. B., Khoury, M. J., Tanzi, R. E., Bertram, L., & Ioannidis, J. P. Evaluation of the Potential Excess of Statistically Significant Findings in Published Genetic Association Studies: Application to Alzheimer’s Disease, American Journal of Epidemiology, September 9, 2008, Read More

Viswanathan, J., Haapasalo, A., Böttcher, C., Miettinen, R., Kurkinen, K. M., Lu, A., Thomas, A., Maynard, C. J., Romano, D., Hyman, B. T., Berezovska, O., Bertram, L., Soininen, H., Dantuma, N. P., Tanzi, R. E., & Hiltunen, M. Alzheimer’s disease-associated Ubiquilin-1 regulates presenilin-1 accumulation and aggresome formation, Traffic, January 7, 2011, Read More

Hooli, B. V., Mohapatra, G., Mattheisen, M., Parrado, A. R., Roehr, J. T., Shen, Y., Gusella, J. F., Moir, R., Saunders, A. J., Lange, C., Tanzi, R. E., & Bertram, L. Role of common and rare APP DNA sequence variants in Alzheimer’s Disease, Neurology, April 17, 2012, Read More

Hooli, B. V., Kovacs-Vajna, Z. M., Mullin, K., Blumenthal, M. A., Mattheisen, M., Zhang, C., Lange, C., Mohapatra, G., Bertram, L., & Tanzi, R. E. Rare autosomal copy number variations in early-onset familial Alzheimer’s disease, Molecular Psychiatry, June 11, 2013, Read More

Neumann, A., Ohlei, O., Küçükali, F., Bos, I. J., Timsina, J., Vos, S., Prokopenko, D., Tijms, B. M., Andreasson, U., Blennow, K., Vandenberghe, R., Scheltens, P., Teunissen, C. E., Engelborghs, S., Frisoni, G. B., Blin, O., Richardson, J. C., Bordet, R., Lleó, A., Alcolea, D., … EMIF-AD & ADNI study group Multivariate GWAS of Alzheimer’s disease CSF biomarker profiles implies GRIN2D in synaptic functioning, Genome Medicine, October 4, 2023, Read More

Homann, J., Osburg, T., Ohlei, O., Dobricic, V., Deecke, L., Bos, I., Vandenberghe, R., Gabel, S., Scheltens, P., Teunissen, C. E., Engelborghs, S., Frisoni, G., Blin, O., Richardson, J. C., Bordet, R., Lleó, A., Alcolea, D., Popp, J., Clark, C., Peyratout, G., Martinez-Lage, P., Tainta, M., Dobson, R.J.B., Legido-Quigley, C., Sleegers, K., Van Broeckhoven, C., Wittig, M., Franke, A., Lill, C.M., Blennow, K., Zetterberg, H., Lovestone, S., Streffer, J., Kate, M., Vos, S. J. B., Barkhof, F., Visser, P. J., & Bertram, L. Genome-Wide Association Study of Alzheimer’s Disease Brain Imaging Biomarkers and Neuropsychological Phenotypes in the European Medical Information Framework for Alzheimer’s Disease Multimodal Biomarker Discovery Dataset, Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, March 21, 2022, Read More

Vetter, V. M., Sommerer, Y., Kalies, C. H., Spira, D., Bertram, L., & Demuth, I. Vitamin D supplementation is associated with slower epigenetic aging, GeroScience, May 13, 2022, Read More

Schjeide, B. M., Hooli, B., Parkinson, M., Hogan, M. F., DiVito, J., Mullin, K., Blacker, D., Tanzi, R. E., & Bertram, L. GAB2 as an Alzheimer Disease Susceptibility Gene, Archives of Neurology, February 1, 2009, Read More

Dobricic, V., Schilling, M., Farkas, I., Gveric, D. O., Ohlei, O., Schulz, J., Middleton, L., Gentleman, S. M., Parkkinen, L., Bertram, L., & Lill, C. M. Common signatures of differential microRNA expression in Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease brains, Brain Communications, October 28, 2022, Read More

Park, S., Lee, S., Lee, Y., Herold, C., Hooli, B., Mullin, K., Park, T., Park, C., Bertram, L., Lange, C., Tanzi, R., & Won, S. Adjusting heterogeneous ascertainment bias for genetic association analysis with extended families, BMC Medical Genetics, August 19, 2015, Read More

Bertram, L., Lange, C., Mullin, K., Parkinson, M., Hsiao, M., Hogan, M. F., Schjeide, B. M., Hooli, B., Divito, J., Ionita, I., Jiang, H., Laird, N., Moscarillo, T., Ohlsen, K. L., Elliott, K., Wang, X., Hu-Lince, D., Ryder, M., Murphy, A., Wagner, S. L., Blacker, D., … Tanzi, R. E. Genome-wide Association Analysis Reveals Putative Alzheimer’s Disease Susceptibility Loci in Addition to APOE, American Journal of Human Genetics, October 30, 2008, Read More

Schjeide, B. M., Schnack, C., Lambert, J. C., Lill, C. M., Kirchheiner, J., Tumani, H., Otto, M., Tanzi, R. E., Lehrach, H., Amouyel, P., von Arnim, C. A., & Bertram, L. The role of clusterin, complement receptor 1, and phosphatidylinositol binding clathrin assembly protein in Alzhiemer Disease risk and cerebrospinal fluid biomarker levels, Archives of General Psychiatry, February 1, 2011, Read More

Won, S., Lu, Q., Bertram, L., Tanzi, R. E., & Lange, C. On the Meta-Analysis of Genome-Wide Association studies: a robust and efficient approach to combine population and family-based studies, Human Heredity, January 18, 2012, Read More

Bertram, L., & Tanzi, R. E. Genome-wide association studies in Alzheimer’s Disease, Human Molecular Genetics, October 15, 2009, Read More

Bertram, L., & Tanzi, R. E. Thirty years of Alzheimer’s disease genetics: the implications of systematic meta-analyses, Nature Reviews Neuroscience, October 1, 2008, Read More

Hooli, B. V., Parrado, A. R., Mullin, K., Yip, W. K., Liu, T., Roehr, J. T., Qiao, D., Jessen, F., Peters, O., Becker, T., Ramirez, A., Lange, C., Bertram, L., & Tanzi, R. E. The rare TREM2 R47H variant exerts only a modest effect on Alzheimer disease risk, Neurology, October 7, 2014, Read More

Bertram, L., Lill, C. M., & Tanzi, R. E. The Genetics of Alzheimer’s disease: back to the future, Neuron, October 21, 2010, Read More

Giedraitis, V., Glaser, A., Sarajärvi, T., Brundin, R., Gunnarsson, M. D., Schjeide, B. M., Tanzi, R. E., Helisalmi, S., Pirttilä, T., Kilander, L., Lannfelt, L., Soininen, H., Bertram, L., Ingelsson, M., & Hiltunen, M. CALHM1 P86L polymorphism does not alter amyloid-beta or tau in cerebrospinal fluid, Neuroscience Letters, January 22, 2010, Read More

Lill, C. M., Roehr, J. T., McQueen, M. B., Kavvoura, F. K., Bagade, S., Schjeide, B. M., Schjeide, L. M., Meissner, E., … Tanzi, R. E., ... Bertram, L. Comprehensive Research Synopsis and Systematic Meta-Analyses in Parkinson’s Disease Genetics: the PDGene database, PLoS Genetics, March 15, 2012, Read More

Bertram, L., & Tanzi, R. E. Genomic Mechanisms in Alzheimer’s Disease, Brain Pathology, September 8, 2020, Read More

Prokopenko, D., Lee, S., Hecker, J., Mullin, K., Morgan, S., Katsumata, Y., Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI), Weiner, M. W., Fardo, D. W., Laird, N., Bertram, L., Hide, W., Lange, C., & Tanzi, R. E. Region-based analysis of rare genomic variants in whole-genome sequencing datasets reveal two novel Alzheimer’s disease-associated genes: DTNB and DLG2, Molecular Psychiatry, March 4, 2022, Read More

Haworth, A., Bertram, L., … Sobrido, M. J. Call for participation in the neurogenetics consortium within the Human Variome Project, Neurogenetics, June 1, 2011, Read More

Bertram L. Alzheimer’s Genetics in the GWAS Era: A Continuing Story of ‘Replications and Refutations’, Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports, March 30, 2011, Read More

Broer, L., Lill, C. M., Schuur, M., Amin, N., Roehr, J. T., Bertram, L., Ioannidis, J. P., & van Duijn, C. M. Distinguishing true from false positives in genomic studies: p values, European Journal of Epidemiology, February 1, 2013, Read More

Laumet, G., Chouraki, V., Grenier-Boley, B., Legry, V., Heath, S., Zelenika, D., Fievet, N., Hannequin, D., Delepine, M., Pasquier, F., Hanon, O., Brice, A., Epelbaum, J., Berr, C., Dartigues, J. F., Tzourio, C., Campion, D., Lathrop, M., Bertram, L., Amouyel, P., … Lambert, J. C. Systematic Analysis of Candidate Genes for Alzheimer’s Disease in a French, Genome-Wide Association Study, Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, June 13, 2010, Read More

Lill, C. M., Liu, T., Schjeide, B. M., Roehr, J. T., Akkad, D. A., Damotte, V., Alcina, A., Ortiz, M. A., … Bertram, L., Zipp, F. Closing the case of APOE in multiple sclerosis: no association with disease risk in over 29,000 subjects, Journal of Medical Genetics, September 1, 2012, Read More

Lill, C. M., Schjeide, B. M., Graetz, C., Liu, T., Damotte, V., Akkad, D. A., Blaschke, P., Gerdes, L. A., Kroner, A., Luessi, F., Cournu-Rebeix, I., Hoffjan, S., Winkelmann, A., Touze, E., Pico, F., Corcia, P., Otaegui, D., Antigüedad, A., Alcina, A., Comabella, M., … Bertram, L. Genome-wide significant associations of ANKRD55 rs6859219 and multiple sclerosis risk, Journal of Medical Genetics, January 12, 2013, Read More

Lill, C. M., Hansen, J., Olsen, J. H., Binder, H., Ritz, B., & Bertram, L. Impact of Parkinson’s disease risk loci on age at onset, Movement Disorders, April 25, 2015, Read More

Lebedeva, E., Stingl, J. C., Thal, D. R., Ghebremedhin, E., Strauss, J., Özer, E., Bertram, L., von Einem, B., Tumani, H., Otto, M., Riepe, M. W., Högel, J., Ludolph, A. C., & von Arnim, C. A. Genetic variants in PSEN2 and correlation to CSF beta-amyloid 42 levels in AD, Neurobiology of Aging, September 20, 2010, Read More

Lill, C. M., Schjeide, B. M., Akkad, D. A., Blaschke, P., Winkelmann, A., Gerdes, L. A., Hoffjan, S., Luessi, F., … Bertram, L., Zipp, F. Independent replication of STAT3 association with multiple sclerosis risk in a large German case-control sample, Neurogenetics, November 18, 2012, Read More

Vetter, V. M., Kalies, C. H., Sommerer, Y., Bertram, L., & Demuth, I. Seven-CpG DNA Methylation Age Determined by Single Nucleotide Primer Extension and Illumina’s Infinium MethylationEPIC Array Provide Highly Comparable Results, Frontiers in Genetics, January 17, 2022, Read More

Sleegers, K., Lambert, J. C., Bertram, L., Cruts, M., Amouyel, P., & Van Broeckhoven, C. The pursuit of susceptibility genes for Alzhiemer’s disease: progress and prospects, Trends in Genetics, January 18, 2010, Read More

Vetter, V. M., Drewelies, J., Sommerer, Y., Kalies, C. H., Regitz-Zagrosek, V., Bertram, L., Gerstorf, D., & Demuth, I. Epigenetic aging and perceived psychological stress in old age, Translational Psychiatry, September 26, 2022, Read More

Vetter, V. M., Kalies, C. H., Sommerer, Y., Spira, D., Drewelies, J., Regitz-Zagrosek, V., Bertram, L., Gerstorf, D., & Demuth, I. Relationship Between 5 Epigenetic Clocks, Telomere Length, and Functional Capacity Assessed in Older Adults: Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Analyses, The Journals of Gerontology: Series A, January 15, 2022, Read More

Lill, C. M., & Bertram, L. Towards Unveiling the Genetics of Neurodegenerative Diseases, Seminars in Neurology, January 21, 2012, Read More

Dolan, S. M., Hollegaard, M. V., Merialdi, M., Betran, A. P., Allen, T., Abelow, C., Nace, J., Lin, B. K., Khoury, M. J., Ioannidis, J. P., Bagade, S., Zheng, X., Dubin, R. A., Bertram, L., Velez Edwards, D. R., & Menon, R. Synopsis of preterm birth genetic association studies: the preterm birth genetics knowledge base (PTBGene), Public Health Genomics, May 20, 2010, Read More

Pfeiffer, T., Bertram, L., & Ioannidis, J. P. Quantifying Selective Reporting and the Proteus Phenomenon for Multiple Datasets with Similar Bias, PLoS One, March 29, 2011, Read More

Pichler, I., Del Greco M, F., Gögele, M., Lill, C. M., Bertram, L., Do, C. B., Eriksson, N., Foroud, T., Myers, R. H., PD GWAS Consortium, Nalls, M., Keller, M. F., International Parkinson's Disease Genomics Consortium, Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium 2, Benyamin, B., Whitfield, J. B., Genetics of Iron Status Consortium, Pramstaller, P. P., Hicks, A. A., Thompson, J. R., … Minelli, C. Serum iron levels and the risk of Parkinson Disease: A mendelian randomization study., PLoS Medicine, June 4, 2013, Read More

Lill, C. M., Schilling, M., Ansaloni, S., Schröder, J., Jaedicke, M., … Bertram, L. Assessment of micro-RNA-related SNP effects in the 3′ untranslated region of the IL22RA2 risk locus in multiple sclerosis, Neurogenetics, March 18, 2014, Read More

Shen, L., Thompson, P. M., Potkin, S. G., Bertram, L., Farrer, L. A., Foroud, T. M., Green, R. C., … Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative Genetic analysis of quantitative phenotypes in AD and MCI: imaging, cognition, and biomarkers, Brain Imaging and Behavior, October 5, 2013, Read More

International Multiple Sclerosis Genetics Consortium, Lill, C. M., Schjeide, B. M., Graetz, C., Ban, M., Alcina, A., Ortiz, M. A., Pérez, J., Damotte, V., Booth, D., Lopez de Lapuente, A., Broer, L., Schilling, M., Akkad, D. A., Aktas, O., Alloza, I., Antigüedad, A., Arroyo, R., Blaschke, P., Buttmann, M., … Bertram, L., Zipp, F. MANBA, CXCR5, SOX8, RPS6KB1, ZBTB46 are genetic risk loci for multiple sclerosis, Brain, June 4, 2013, Read More

Demuth, I., Banszerus, V., Drewelies, J., Düzel, S., Seeland, U., Spira, D., Tse, E., Braun, J., Steinhagen-Thiessen, E., Bertram, L., Thiel, A., Lindenberger, U., Regitz-Zagrosek, V., Gerstorf, D., & Additional BASE-II/GendAge investigators Cohort profile: follow-up of a Berlin Aging Study II (BASE-II) subsample as part of the GendAge study, BMJ Open, July 23, 2021, Read More

Lill, C. M., Rengmark, A., Pihlstrøm, L., Fogh, I., Shatunov, A., Sleiman, P. M., Wang, L. S., Liu, T., Lassen, C. F., Meissner, E., Alexopoulos, P., Calvo, A., Chio, A., Dizdar, N., Faltraco, F., Forsgren, L., Kirchheiner, J., Kurz, A., Larsen, J. P., Liebsch, M., … Bertram, L. The role of TREM2 R47H as a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease, frontotemporal lobar degeneration, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer's & Dementia, April 30, 2015, Read More

Prokopenko, D., Hecker, J., Kirchner, R., Chapman, B. A., Hoffman, O., Mullin, K., Hide, W., Bertram, L., Laird, N., DeMeo, D. L., Lange, C., & Tanzi, R. E. Identification of Novel Alzheimer’s Disease Loci Using Sex-Specific Family-Based Association Analysis of Whole-Genome Sequence Data, Scientific Reports, March 19, 2020, Read More

Prokopenko, D., Morgan, S. L., Mullin, K., Hofmann, O., Chapman, B., Kirchner, R., Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI), Amberkar, S., Wohlers, I., Lange, C., Hide, W., Bertram, L., & Tanzi, R. E. Whole-genome sequencing reveals new Alzheimer’s disease-associated rare variants in loci related to synaptic function and neuronal development, Alzheimer's & Dementia, April 2, 2021, Read More

Schjeide, B. M., McQueen, M. B., Mullin, K., DiVito, J., Hogan, M. F., Parkinson, M., Hooli, B., Lange, C., Blacker, D., Tanzi, R. E., & Bertram, L. Assessment of Alzheimer’s disease case-control associations using family-based methods, Neurogenetics, February 1, 2009, Read More

Youn, C., Grotzinger, A. D., Lill, C. M., Bertram, L., Schmiedek, F., Lövdén, M., Lindenberger, U., Nivard, M., Harden, K. P., & Tucker-Drob, E. M. Genetic associations with learning over 100 days of practice, npj Science of Learning, May 4, 2022, Read More

Dobricic, V., Schilling, M., Schulz, J., Zhu, L. S., Zhou, C. W., Fuß, J., Franzenburg, S., Zhu, L. Q., Parkkinen, L., Lill, C. M., & Bertram, L. Differential microRNA expression analyses across two brain regions in Alzheimer’s disease, Translational Psychiatry, August 29, 2022, Read More

Lill, C. M., & Bertram, L. Genome-wide analysis furthers decoding of Alzheimer disease genetics, Nature Reviews Neurology, May 27, 2022, Read More

Drewelies, J., Hueluer, G., Duezel, S., Vetter, V. M., Pawelec, G., Steinhagen-Thiessen, E., Wagner, G. G., Lindenberger, U., Lill, C. M., Bertram, L., Gerstorf, D., & Demuth, I. Using blood test parameters to define biological age among older adults: association with morbidity and mortality independent of chronological age validated in two separate birth cohorts, GeroScience, September 24, 2022, Read More

Sommerer, Y., Dobricic, V., Schilling, M., Ohlei, O., Bartrés-Faz, D., Cattaneo, G., Demuth, I., Düzel, S., Franzenburg, S., Fuß, J., Lindenberger, U., Pascual-Leone, Á., Sabet, S. S., Solé-Padullés, C., Tormos, J. M., Vetter, V. M., Wesse, T., Franke, A., Lill, C. M., & Bertram, L. Epigenome-Wide Association Study in Peripheral Tissues Highlights DNA Methylation Profiles Associated with Episodic Memory Performance in Humans, Biomedicines, November 3, 2022, Read More

Sommerer, Y., Dobricic, V., Schilling, M., Ohlei, O., Sabet, S. S., Wesse, T., Fuß, J., Franzenburg, S., Franke, A., Parkkinen, L., Lill, C. M., & Bertram, L. Entorhinal cortex epigenome-wide association study highlights four novel loci showing differential methylation in Alzheimer’s disease, Alzheimer's Research & Therapy, May 6, 2023, Read More

Sommerer, Y., Ohlei, O., Dobricic, V., Oakley, D. H., Wesse, T., Sedghpour Sabet, S., Demuth, I., Franke, A., Hyman, B. T., Lill, C. M., & Bertram, L. A correlation map of genome-wide DNA methylation patterns between paired human brain and buccal samples, Clinical Epigenetics, November 1, 2022, Read More

Deecke, L., Homann, J., Goldeck, D., Ohlei, O., Dobricic, V., Drewelies, J., Demuth, I., Pawelec, G., Bertram, L., & Lill, C. M. No increase of CD8+ TEMRA cells in the blood of healthy adults at high genetic risk of Alzheimer’s disease, Alzheimer's & Dementia, January 25, 2024, Read More

Wallace, B. C., Small, K., Brodley, C. E., Lau, J., Schmid, C. H., Bertram, L., Lill, C. M., Cohen, J. T., & Trikalinos, T. A. Toward modernizing the systematic review pipeline in genetics: efficient updating via data mining, Genetics in Medicine, April 5, 2012, Read More

Lill, C. M., & Bertram, L. Developing the “Next Generation: of genetic association databases for complex diseases, Human Mutation, July 12, 2012, Read More