Can environmental factors modify the effect of genes influencing blood pressure?

Revision as of 19:10, 23 March 2012 by OldTanguy (talk | contribs)

Background: Large studies (including hundreds of thousands of individuals) identified genetic factors influencing blood pressure. However, it is unknown whether the effect of the discovered genetic variants are modified by life-style factors.

Goal: The goal of this project is to use the Cohorte Lausannois (CoLaus) data to find environmental factors (e.g. alcohol consumption, physical activity, smoking, etc.) that modify genetic effects influencing blood pressure.

Mathematical tools: Statistics. The students will learn how to use Matlab to read in large data sets including genetic data; conduct linear and logistic regression and interaction analysis.

Biological or Medical aspects:

Supervisors: Diana Marek & Murielle Bochud & Zoltán Kutalik

Students: Sophie Debonneville, Daniel Schmocker

Presentations: Media:CYP1A1-A2_BP.ppt Media:Genotypic_data_course_March2012.ppt‎ Media:How_to_solve_biological_problems_with_math_23032012_.pptx‎

References: <biblio>

  1. ehret2011 Ehret et al. Genetic variants in novel pathways influence blood

pressure and cardiovascular disease risk. Nature. 2011 Oct 6; 478: 103–109.

  1. colaus Firmann M, Mayor V, Vidal PM, Bochud M, Pécoud A, Hayoz D, Paccaud F, Preisig M, Song KS, Yuan X, Danoff TM, Stirnadel HA, Waterworth D, Mooser V, Waeber G, Vollenweider P.The CoLaus study: a population-based study to investigate the epidemiology and genetic determinants of cardiovascular risk factors and metabolic syndrome. BMC Cardiovasc Disord. 2008 Mar 17;8:6.

</biblio> see Genome Wide Association Studies, Media: McCarthy_review_GWAS.pdf , GWAS papers

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