Kroncke Laboratory
Translational Cardiogenetics · Vanderbilt

What does a genetic variant actually mean for the person who carries it?

We move past binary “pathogenic / benign” labels to give each carrier a calibrated probability of a clinically meaningful outcome — pairing high-throughput biology, protein structure, and Bayesian modeling.

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Beyond the label

A variant is rarely simply benign or pathogenic. We estimate the probability it leads to a concerning clinical outcome.

Benign Likely benign Variant of uncertain significance Likely pathogenic Pathogenic
The five-tier classification leaves most variants stranded in the middle as “uncertain.”
S1787N · 8%
Y1795H · 41%
R367H · 89%
0%  ·  lower probability of disease higher probability of disease  ·  100%

Each variant gets a calibrated, individualized estimate — far more actionable for a clinician or a family than a single categorical label.

The Research Program

From a binary label to a calibrated probability.

An open-source pipeline mines the literature with large language models, unifies AlphaMissense, REVEL, CADD, ClinVar and gnomAD, folds in 3D structural priors, and returns penetrance with explicit uncertainty — for cardiac arrhythmia genes like KCNH2 and SCN5A.

Read our approach →
Disease-associated variants in Nav1.5 mapped onto structure
Variants in Nav1.5 (SCN5A) mapped onto structure — BrS1 · LQT3 · unaffected
55,000+
Variants mapped
4
Genes live
1,400+
SCN5A curated
1
Patented method
How the pipeline works

Four steps from the published record to a calibrated risk estimate.

01

Curate

LLM agents pull per-variant carrier counts, phenotypes and study context from PubMed; a multi-model consensus scores gene–disease validity against the ClinGen SOP.

02

Annotate

AlphaMissense, REVEL, CADD, ClinVar and gnomAD are unified into one queryable resource, so every variant carries the same panel of evidence.

03

Localize

Variants are mapped onto AlphaFold structures with elastic-network analysis, so pathogenic clusters raise the prior for nearby variants of uncertain significance.

04

Estimate

A Bayesian model fuses carriers, predictive features and structural priors into penetrance estimates with full uncertainty — our patented framework.

Current focus

What we are working on now.

⌕ Evidence

LLM-assisted curation

Pipelines mine PubMed for variant, phenotype and carrier evidence, then a multi-model consensus scores gene–disease validity.

▦ Data

Multi-source features

AlphaMissense, REVEL, CADD, ClinVar and gnomAD unified into one resource, so every variant carries the same evidence.

◳ Structure

Structure-aware priors

AlphaFold models place variants in 3D, letting pathogenic neighborhoods inform priors for nearby VUS.

∿ Modeling

Bayesian penetrance

A probabilistic model fuses carrier counts, features and structural priors into penetrance with full uncertainty.

⚗ Function

High-throughput function

Deep mutational scanning and automated patch clamp measure variant effects at scale — including the fullest KCNH2 map to date.

♥ Models

Stem-cell & clinical

CRISPR-edited iPSC-cardiomyocytes test how polygenic background shifts expressivity; survival models flag breakthrough events.

Long QT syndrome Brugada syndrome Atrial fibrillation KCNH2 SCN5A KCNQ1 RyR2 AlphaFold PyMC iPSC-CMs
The public resource

VariantBrowser.org

A freely available portal used by clinicians, genetic counselors and researchers worldwide. Each gene page unifies carrier counts, functional data, structural context and in silico predictors behind a calibrated Bayesian estimate of disease probability.

Explore the browser →
KCNQ1Long QT type 14,386 variants
KCNH2Long QT type 27,995 variants
SCN5ABrugada / LQT313,739 variants
RYR2CPVT29,236 variants