Identify Genetic Overlap Between Diseases Using Genome-Wide Summary Statistics

Wednesday, February 15, 2023

2:00 PM-3:00 PM

Join the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics for this event in their Seminar Series.

Debashree Ray, PhD, MStat, Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins University, will present "Identify genetic overlap between diseases using genome-wide summary statistics."

In this talk, I will discuss a new statistical approach, PLACO, for detecting genetic overlap or common genetic basis of two traits by considering an underlying composite null hypothesis that a genetic variant is associated with none or only one of the traits. I will show PLACO requires only summary-level data as used in meta-analysis, can maintain type I error at stringent levels used in genetic studies, and can achieve major power gain over alternative methods typically used in the literature. PLACO allows correlation in summary statistics between studies that may arise due to sharing of controls between disease traits. Finally, I will show applications to type 2 diabetes, and to orofacial clefts.

Dr. Debashree Ray is a biostatistician and a statistical geneticist. She is an Assistant Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her work primarily focuses on developing new statistical methods and tools for analyzing large-scale data to elucidate genetic basis of common human diseases. Her applied research interest includes genetic epidemiology of diabetes and related biomarkers. More recently, she has led and collaborated on timely research and scientific communication on COVID-19 in India.

Contact Information

Nancy Colon-Anderson
nanderson@drexel.edu