Why attend the workshop
Genome-wide Association studies (GWAS) are becoming the method of choice for studying disease etiology with an increasing number of GWAS studies reporting rapid progress towards uncovering the genetic markers for complex diseases. GWAS have successfully identified genetic variants that contribute to complex human diseases mainly in European populations. Despite these successes, possible technical challenges with using non-Europeans populations, in particular African populations for GWAS, was recently debated. These challenges include: the smaller extent of linkage disequilibrium (LD) between variants in African populations, resulting in a limited coverage of their common variation panels. The proposed workshop aims to introduce an interdisciplinary audience to the potential of GWAS and to key strategic considerations in designing and performing disease gene-mapping studies.
Objectives
This workshop is aimed at introducing an interdisciplinary audience to the potential of GWAS and to key strategic considerations in designing and performing association studies for mapping disease genes. It will cover the fundamental assumptions, showcase recent successes and discuss limitations of current GWAS approaches in the field of complex diseases, and particularly in the case of African populations known of low linkage disequilibrium. It will also provide ‘hands-on’ experience of data analysis.
Workshop relevance
The analysis of genetic determinants in human disease, particularly in complex traits such as cardiovascular, diabetes, obesity, tuberculosis and heart diseases has advanced markedly in recent years due to the availability of high-density maps of Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) markers; new insights into human genome structure from next generation sequences and novel analytical methods. Furthermore, Genome-wide Association studies (GWAS) are becoming the method of choice for studying disease etiology with an increasing number of GWAS studies reporting rapid progress towards uncovering the genetic markers for complex diseases. The high-throughput nature of this technology allowed for whole genomes to be sequenced; and has greatly facilitated the rapid and economical detection of pathogenic mutations in human disorders. The sheer size and complexity of such data highlights the need to understand at data analysis point of view and develop increasingly sophisticated statistical and machine learning methods for studying the genetic origins of complex diseases. GWAS have successfully identified genetic variants that contribute to complex human diseases mainly in European populations. Despite these successes, possible technical challenges with using non-Europeans populations, in particular African populations for GWAS, was recently debated. These challenges include: the smaller extent of linkage disequilibrium (LD) between variants in African populations, resulting in a limited coverage of their common variation panels.
Target audience
The target audience includes technicians, graduate students, postdocs and established investigators just entering the field of complex trait genetics with the goal of bringing all up to speed on basic principles of human genetic variation, genotyping and association studies.
Prerequisites
Selected participants will need to work through the following resources to enable them to gain the most from the workshop:
Genome-wide Association studies (GWAS) are becoming the method of choice for studying disease etiology with an increasing number of GWAS studies reporting rapid progress towards uncovering the genetic markers for complex diseases. GWAS have successfully identified genetic variants that contribute to complex human diseases mainly in European populations. Despite these successes, possible technical challenges with using non-Europeans populations, in particular African populations for GWAS, was recently debated. These challenges include: the smaller extent of linkage disequilibrium (LD) between variants in African populations, resulting in a limited coverage of their common variation panels. The proposed workshop aims to introduce an interdisciplinary audience to the potential of GWAS and to key strategic considerations in designing and performing disease gene-mapping studies.
Objectives
This workshop is aimed at introducing an interdisciplinary audience to the potential of GWAS and to key strategic considerations in designing and performing association studies for mapping disease genes. It will cover the fundamental assumptions, showcase recent successes and discuss limitations of current GWAS approaches in the field of complex diseases, and particularly in the case of African populations known of low linkage disequilibrium. It will also provide ‘hands-on’ experience of data analysis.
Workshop relevance
The analysis of genetic determinants in human disease, particularly in complex traits such as cardiovascular, diabetes, obesity, tuberculosis and heart diseases has advanced markedly in recent years due to the availability of high-density maps of Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) markers; new insights into human genome structure from next generation sequences and novel analytical methods. Furthermore, Genome-wide Association studies (GWAS) are becoming the method of choice for studying disease etiology with an increasing number of GWAS studies reporting rapid progress towards uncovering the genetic markers for complex diseases. The high-throughput nature of this technology allowed for whole genomes to be sequenced; and has greatly facilitated the rapid and economical detection of pathogenic mutations in human disorders. The sheer size and complexity of such data highlights the need to understand at data analysis point of view and develop increasingly sophisticated statistical and machine learning methods for studying the genetic origins of complex diseases. GWAS have successfully identified genetic variants that contribute to complex human diseases mainly in European populations. Despite these successes, possible technical challenges with using non-Europeans populations, in particular African populations for GWAS, was recently debated. These challenges include: the smaller extent of linkage disequilibrium (LD) between variants in African populations, resulting in a limited coverage of their common variation panels.
Target audience
The target audience includes technicians, graduate students, postdocs and established investigators just entering the field of complex trait genetics with the goal of bringing all up to speed on basic principles of human genetic variation, genotyping and association studies.
Prerequisites
Selected participants will need to work through the following resources to enable them to gain the most from the workshop:
- http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Teaching/Unix/
- http://www.r-tutor.com/r-introduction
- https://www.python.org/