Variant-level fine-mapping in major depressive disorder: new insights, new questions by Joni Coleman, Lecturer in Statistical Genetics at KCL

Major depressive disorder has benefitted particularly, with rapid discovery in the last five years culminating in hundreds of loci identified in an upcoming GWAS. However, these statistical associations have been slow to yield biological insight. In this talk, I will describe my recent work using functionally-informed statistical fine-mapping approaches to identify causal variants, likely to have a biological effect in major depressive disorder. I will discuss some of the challenges in applying these methods, and demonstrate how the identification of causal variants in psychiatry is still in its infancy compared to the study of other traits such as height.

Biography: Joni Coleman is a Lecturer in Statistical Genetics at the Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience, King's College London. He is interested in integrating functional information and environmental context to gain further insights into genetic associations identified through genome-wide association studies.

Delivery and Registration: The seminar will be delivered in person and on Zoom. To register, please click here. Registration closes: Wednesday, 23 November 2022 at 09:00 (BST). If you miss the registration, please contact IDSAI.

Whilst we appreciate the flexibility that hybrid deliver brings, we would encourage you to come along in person where there will be tea and coffee afterwards.

If you have any queries, please contact IDSAI.

This forms part of the IDSAI Research Seminar Series for 2022-2023.