Lectures and seminars MEB seminar: Naomi Wray and Peter Visscher, University of Queensland

01-09-2022 11:00 am - 12:00 pm Add to iCal
Campus Solna Wargentin lecture hall and zoom

Our Foreign Adjunct Professors Nomi Wray and Peter Visscher are coming to MEB so everyone is warmly welcome to attend their joint seminar.

Title: Genetics of complex traits: height and gut

Zoom Link: https://ki-se.zoom.us/j/63383961588

Naomi Wray’s Researcher biography 

Professor Naomi Wray holds joint appointments at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB) and the Queensland Brain Institute (QBI) within the University of Queensland. She is a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Leadership Fellow, a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Science. In 2020 she was awarded the NHMRC Elizabeth Blackburn Award for Leadership in Basic Science. She is a Clarivate Highly Cited researcher. Her research focusses on development of quantitative genetics and genomics methodology with application to psychiatric and neurological disorders. She plays a key role in the International Psychiatric Genomics Consortium and co-leads the sporadic ALS Australia systems genomics consortium (SALSA) funded by the MND Research Australia IceBucket Challenge and FightMND. She is one of three international advisors to JAMA Psychiatry and is on the editorial advsiory board of Neuron.

She is a Director of the Program in Complex Trait Genomics (PCTG) funded as an NHMRC Program Grant 2017-2021. The PCTG comprises a critical mass of more than 30 post-doctoral researchers, research assistants and students, all supported by external grant funding. PCTG is structured into five research themes: Statistical Genomics, Systems Genomics, Psychiatric Genomics, MND Genomics and Biobank Genomics.

She leads the COVID-OZGenetics and ATHENA-BIO-COVID Project, which are recruiting participants who have tested positive for COVID19 - at any time - and live in Australia. Participants describe symptoms at the time of infection, and at 3 month intervals and then provide a blood sample. The relationship between DNA variations and variability in symptoms will be investigated. The study is governed by human ethics approvals and will contribute to a worldwide effort.

Peter Visscher’s Researcher biography 

Visscher joined the University of Queensland in 2011, where he is Professor of Quantitative Genetics. He is a Laureate Fellow of the Australian Research Council. Visscher was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 2010, a Fellow of the Royal Society (London) in 2018 and a Foreign Member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2018.

Visscher's research is about genetic variation for complex traits (including quantitative traits and disease) in populations, with the broad aim to understand and quantify the causes and consequences of human trait variation.

Prof Peter Visscher, Prof Naomi Wray and Prof Jian Yang together comprise the Executive Team of the Program in Complex Trait Genomics (PCTG). PCTG comprises a critical mass of more than 30 post-doctoral researchers plus research assistants and students, all supported by external grant funding. Their skills lie in the ability to develop and apply statistical methods within the framework of quantitative, population and statistical genetics and to use theory to understand and predict results from data analyses. They play leading roles in the international research consortia. The focus of current research activities is in the detection and fine-mapping of loci underlying complex traits (including common disease), based upon theoretical studies and applications of methods to large datasets, in population genetics studies using theoretical approaches and high-density genetic marker data, and in systems genomics studies.

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Janina Mahmoodi Administrator