Dr. Peter Joshi and Dr. Jim Wilsoni avatud loengud esmaspäeval, 23. mail kell 13:00 OMICUMi suures saalis

Title:  Dr. Peter Joshi: “GWAS of Human Lifespan”
Abstract: Lifespan is a trait of interest to everyone. Until recently GWAS have focussed on long-livedness as a binary trait, with APOE and perhaps FOXO3 being the only loci that have been robustly replicated (GWAS of longevity in CHARGE consortium confirms APOE and FOXO3 candidacy, Broer et al. 2015 J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci.). Focussing on long-livedness has strengths and limitations, biologically it may focus on ageing rather than common disease, whilst statistically study of trait extremes should increase power, for a given sample size. On the other hand long-livedness may miss early life effects and subject recruitment may be difficult and, very importantly, does not usually permit general population cohorts to take part. We recently developed a GWAS approach to lifespan that overcomes these difficulties and discovered two genome wide significant variants, both of which replicated – using parental lifespan information, coupled with Cox models (Joshi PK et al. Variants near CHRNA3/5 and APOE have age- and sex-related effects on human lifespan. Nature Commun 7, 11174, March 2016). 
Short bio of Peter Joshi http://www.orcades.ed.ac.uk/team/ruth.html

Title: Dr. Jim Wilson: “Big and Clever: Darwinian Fitness, Inbreeding and Health”
Abstract: We have known since the time of Darwin and before that inbreeding causes a decrease in the fitness of offspring, however until recently the scope of such inbreeding depression in humans was poorly understood. I will present our work elucidating a genomic approach to the investigation of inbreeding depression in humans, how these measures are influenced by demographic history and how they relate to a number of complex traits of public health and evolutionary interest.
Short bio of Jim Wilson http://www.orcades.ed.ac.uk/team/index.htm