Felix Reichelt is a PhD student in genetic epidemiology at the University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG) and a member of the Stress in Action consortium. He obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Molecular Cell Biology from Wageningen University and a Master’s degree in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Amsterdam, with a major in Big Biomedical Data Science. Building on a background in genetic diagnostics, his PhD examines how genetic and environmental factors jointly shape stress-related exposures and personality traits, and how these processes contribute to cardiometabolic health.

“To what extent are stress-related exposures and personality traits heritable, and what do gene × stress exposure and gene × stress response interactions reveal about individual differences in cardiometabolic health?”

Using the multigenerational Lifelines cohort and the Netherlands Twin Register, Felix studies genetic and environmental contributions to chronic stress exposures such as long term difficulties, stressful life events, childhood trauma, loneliness and low social support, as well as key personality traits. His first project quantifies heritability and familial overlap between stress exposures and personality in Lifelines. Ongoing work extends these findings to twin data and prepares a genome wide association study of coronary artery calcium as a central cardiometabolic outcome. Future analyses will combine polygenic risk scores with detailed stress measures to test gene × stress interactions in cardiometabolic risk within the Stress in Action framework.

PhD student,
UMC Groningen