4:00pm - 4:30pm: Annie Li
Title: The Use of Genome-Wide Association and Mendelian Randomization in Epidemiology Studies
Abstract: In observational epidemiology studies, one problem is the difficulty of identifying causal associations between modifiable traits and diseases. With the development of high-throughput genotyping technologies, Genome-wide association approach provides a powerful tool for identifying genetic variants associated with clinical conditions and traits. The identified genetic variants can then be used as a proxy in a Mendelian randomization framework for analysing causal associations. This talk is about my experience with genome-wide association studies and Mendelian randomization during my CO-OP work terms in the Centre for Heart and Lung Innovation, UBC and St. Paul’s Hospital.
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4:30pm - 5:00pm: Ming Wan
Title: Genotype Imputation and Association Testing in Genome-Wide Association Studies
Abstract: In the past decade, Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS) have greatly advanced our understanding of the genetic bases on complex diseases. In this presentation, I will talk about the statistical methods applied in two GWA studies from the Denise Daley lab, St. Paul’s hospital. In particular, 1) The use of modified principal component analysis to better control for population stratification in the presence of related samples; 2) Imputation of ungenotyped allele variants using Hidden Markov Models to boost study power. Additionally, I will also touch on the computational issues that arise from large sample size association studies.