Mete Civelek

Mete Civelek is an Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering and a resident faculty at the Center for Public Health Genomics at the University of Virginia. He joined UVA faculty in 2015 after completing a postdoctoral fellowship in cardiovascular genetics at the University of California, Los Angeles.

His laboratory studies the complex interactions among genes and environment that increase our risk for heart disease and type 2 diabetes. In the last fifteen years, we learned more about the genes that affect our disease risk than in the previous 50 years, thanks to technological advances in genome sequencing. But for most of the genes, we still do not know how they affect the development of heart disease or type 2 diabetes. His laboratory takes a holistic approach by carefully studying various human populations to connect the dots between genes and disease. They use data science, systems biology, and traditional molecular biology approaches to discover novel disease pathways in human cells and mice. They aim to develop new therapies customized to individual heart disease or type 2 diabetes patients.

Dr. Civelek’s research has been funded by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), the Leducq Foundation, the American Heart Association, and the American Diabetes Association. Dr. Civelek is a Fellow of the American Heart Association. He received many awards for his research, mentorship, and teaching, including the NIH Pathway to Independence Award, Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award, ATVB Diversity and Inclusion Leadership Recognition Award, and the Outstanding Undergraduate Research Mentor Award from UVA’s Office of Citizen Scholar Development. He serves as the chair of the Biomedical Engineering Department’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee and is a member of the leadership team of the Driving Change Initiative supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.