Genetic epidemiology methods platform

Coordinator:		Prof. Dr. Andreas Ziegler
Institution:		Universität Lübeck
Homepage:		www.imbs-luebeck.de

Our first research goal is to continue providing biometrical support to all partners of the Atherogenomics consortium. Mirroring the diversity of approaches in the consortium, the support pertains to studies including linkage analyses in large families and sib pairs, genetic association studies in candidate genes and genome wide, and gene expression analyses. The support will encompass designing, performing, analyzing, and interpreting studies. The past months have underlined that GWAs are a promising tool for dissecting the genetic background of complex diseases.
Thus, the project aims at facilitating the statistical analysis and subsequent development of diagnostic and prognostic instruments through tools which
1.    include novel, non-standard methodologies, which are able to deal with the classical situation in GWAs,
2.    are flexible to adjust to different types of data including, e.g., copy number variations,
3.    perform refined quality checks on the data, such as automatic evaluation of signal intensity cluster plots and estimation of population stratification,
4.    allow for the development of diagnostic and prognostic models,
5.    are based on new implementations which are time- and space-efficient as well as flexible, and
6.    use a platform which is able to deal with large amounts of data.

Recent studies have yielded heterogeneous findings, which is suspected to be partly due to insufficient quality in study design, quality control, analysis and interpretation of results. Therefore, we aim at improving the overall quality of genetic association studies by preparing and implementing guidelines for the planning, report, and evaluation of these studies.