扬尼斯·克洛维什

Janis Klovins is Head of Scientific Council at Latvian Biomedical Research and Study Centre, Professor of Molecular Biology at the University of Latvia, and takes an active part in Latvia's science management activities. From 2016 to 2020, he was the chairman of the Latvian Science Council. He is also a full member of the Latvian Academy of Sciences and a member of numerous professional and advisory comities. Janis Klovins graduated from the University of Latvia in 1996 and obtained his Ph.D. at Leiden University in 1999. He performed his postdoc research at the Department of Neuroscience, BMC, Uppsala University, from 2001 to 2004. During that time, he received several prestigious fellowships, including Marie Curie Individual Fellowship, EMBO short-term fellowship, and Wenner-Gren fellowship. After returning to the Latvian Biomedical Research and Study Centre in 2005, he founded the research group in LBMC and established the Genome Centre, becoming the head of this unit. Since 2006 he led the establishment of the Genome Database of Latvian Population, the national biobank that comprises biological samples and associated phenotypic and clinical information of over 35'000 participants from the Latvian population. Recent research activities of Prof. Klovins are concerned with genomics and microbiome research in the Latvian population. Among other diseases, his research concerns the complexity of antidiabetic drug responses in patients with type 2 diabetes. It goes beyond pharmacogenomics and demonstrates the system-based approach involving investigating the microbiome and epigenetic factors determining the response to diabetes treatment. Prof. Klovins has actively engaged in COVID-19 research by introducing the SARS-CoV-2 sequencing in Latvia and performing a multi-omics study on the cohort of COVID-19 patients.