Beyond the exome

DFG funded Research Group

People of Beyond the exome

Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Birte Kehr

Testbeschreibung Leibniz Institute for Immunotherapy
AG Algorithmic Bioinformatics
Franz-Josef-Strauß-Allee 11
D-93053 Regensburg, Germany

Phone: +49 (0)941 944 18161
FAX: +49 (0)941 944 38133
Email: birte.kehr@klinik.uni-regensburg.de
Homepage: https://kehrlab.github.io/



Birte Kehr, PhD, leads a research group for Algorithmic Bioinformatics at the Leibniz Institute for Immunotherapy (LIT) and is appointed as associate professor within the new faculty for computer and data science at the University Regensburg. As a bioinformatician by training, her research interest broadly bridges biomedicine with computer science. More specifically, her group specialises in the development of software and algorithms for analysing genome sequence data. Her recent research focused particularly on identifying and genotyping structural variation in human genomes while earlier research addressed the problem of whole-genome alignment across species. Prior to joining the LIT, Birte Kehr lead a junior research group at the BIH within the Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin. She received her postdoctoral training as a Research Scientist at deCODE genetics in Iceland. During this time, she gained experience in analysing large-scale genomic data and developed a particular interest in structural variation discovery for understanding human disease. Among the computational approaches she and her group have developed, implemented, and applied to large-scale sequencing data are the tools bcmap, PopIns(2), PopDel and Stellar. Furthermore, she was involved in developing popSTR, PopAlu and Graphtyper. Her work has led to the discovery of multiple structural variants involved in various diseases, including cardiovascular disease and cancer. She published a call set of structural variants that involve non-reference sequence for more than 15,000 Icelanders and contributed to work that characterised the influence of parental origin of de novo mutation on mutational patterns in more than 1,500 Icelandic trios. She obtained her PhD in 2014 from the Free University of Berlin at the department for mathematics and computer science and within the International Max Planck Research School for Computational Biology and Scientific Computing.

Publications (selection)

Lüpken R, Krannich T, Kehr B. Bcmap: fast alignment-free barcode mapping for linked-read sequencing data. BioRxiv 2022;DOI:10.1101/2022.06.20.496811.

Schwarz JM, Luepken R, Seelow D, Kehr B. Novel sequencing technologies and bioinformatic tools for deciphering the non-coding genome. Medizinische Genetik 2021;33(2):133-145.

Niehus S, Jónsson H, Schönberger J, Björnsson E, Beyter D, Eggertsson HP, Sulem P, Stefánsson K, Halldórsson BV, Kehr B. PopDel identifies medium-size deletions simultaneously in tens of thousands of genomes. Nature Communications 2021;12:730.

Kehr B, Helgadottir A, Melsted P, Jonsson H, Helgason H, Jonasdottir Ad, Jonasdottir As, Sigurdsson A, Gylfason A, Halldorsson GH, Kristmundsdottir S, Thorgeirsson G, Olafsson I, Holm H, Thorsteinsdottir U, Sulem P, Helgason A, Gudbjartsson DF, Halldorsson BV, Stefansson K. Diversity in non-repetitive human sequences not found in the refer-ence genome. Nature Genetics 2017;49:588-593.

Jonsson H, Sulem P, Kehr B, Kristmundsdottir S, Zink F, Hjartarson E, Hardarson MT, Hjorleifsson KE, Eggertsson HP, Gudjonsson SAA, Ward LD, Arnadottir GA, Helgason EA, Helgason H, Gylfason A, Jonasdottir As, Jonasdottir Ad, Rafnar Th, Frigge M, Stacey SN, Magnusson OTh, Thorsteinsdottir U, Masson G, Kong A, Halldorsson BV, Helgason A, Gudbjartsson DF, Stefansson K. Parental influence on human germline de novo mutations in 1,548 trios from Iceland. Nature 2017;549:519-522.