Dr. Pajukanta's laboratory focuses on genetics of cardiovascular disorders with a particular interest in the premature coronary heart disease (CHD) and familial lipid disorders such as familial combined hyperlipidemia (FCHL) and decreased high-density lipoprotein (HDL)-cholesterol predisposing to premature CHD. During the last 15 years, Dr. Pajukanta's research group has conducted several genome-wide scans for cardiovascular traits, and identified genes for FCHL, hypertriglyceridemia, low HDL-C, obesity, and combined lipase deficiency. Their current studies focus on targeted resequencing, exome sequencing, genomic gene expression and association analysis to identify variants, genes, and pathways for complex cardiovascular traits, utilizing both study samples from diverse populations and a variety of novel and state of the art statistical methods of systems genetics. The characterization of genes for cardiovascular traits has a great potential to develop more accurate diagnostic tools, earlier detection, preventive interventions, and biology-based targeted therapeutical strategies.