Institute Colloquium: Interactive web-based genetic research at 23andMe
Date:
Monday, October 29, 2012 16:30 - 17:30
Speaker:
Nicholas Eriksson (23andMe)
Location:
Raiffeisen Lecture Hall, Central Building
Series:
Institute colloquium
Contact:
Hetzenauer Irene
With the costs of genotyping and sequencing dropping rapidly, bringing together individuals to collect phenotypes becomes a proportionally greater hurdle in genetic research. As the flurry of genetic progress in the last decade has created an excitement about genetics in the public, 23andMe has brought together over 150,000 consumers in order to learn about their genetics and to participate in new research using web-based surveys. This has allowed us to study over 1,000 different diseases and traits, most of which have never been analyzed in large scale human genetics. I'll show how this approach can lead to interesting results for a wide range of phenotypes, including Parkinson's disease, allergies, and a wide variety of morphological traits. We have discovered over 250 novel associations for morphological traits such as shoe size, dimples, and nose shape. These associations show that there is an interesting, complex genetic architecture underlying human morphology and point towards a possible role of morphology driving selection. I'll also discuss the current state of risk prediction based on genetics and give some projections for the future.