[The Svedberg seminar] Genetics of Type 2 Diabetes: Advances, Prospects, and Challenges
May 6, 2024 @ 15:15 – 16:15 CEST
Benjamin F. Voight
Associate Professor, Pharmacology and Genetics
University of Pennsylvania – Perelman School of Medicine, USA
Bio
Ben Voight received his PhD from the University of Chicago, with postdoctoral training at Massachusetts General Hospital, staying on at the Broad Institute as a research scientist. He is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Pennsylvania in the Department of Systems Pharmacology and Translational Therapeutics, and the Department of Genetics. As a human geneticist, research from his group focuses on understanding the genetic, biological, and evolutionary basis of metabolic phenotypes in human populations, particularly diabetes, cardiovascular, and liver disease. Recent data scientific efforts focus on new association studies for discovery using biobank-scale data (e.g., the Million Veteran Program), post-association study analyses to understand the genetic architecture of disease and ultimately the underlying causal variants, and quantitative trait locus mapping for expression and chromatic accessibility using primary pancreas and liver data sets.
Genetics of Type 2 Diabetes: Advances, Prospects, and Challenges
Type 2 diabetes is a heterogeneous disease that develops through diverse pathophysiological processes and molecular mechanisms. Elucidating the processes and mechanisms by identifying new loci associated with disease, the underlying causal variants and genes, and the cell types of action are areas of current focus by the research community. I will describe recent contributions by the Type 2 Diabetes Global Genomic Initiative, our newly minted consortium focused on expanding locus discovery across diverse ancestries, understanding physiological mechanism and prediction of susceptibility to complications through genetic subtyping, and nomination of putative causal genes and mechanism through statistical colocalization. I will also briefly discuss prospects for exciting potential advances in the near term from new data types and improved computational methods, as well as my perceptions of open challenges and potential thoughts on how to take those on – ultimately to understand disease etiology and to generate prospects for therapeutic intervention.
Host: Marcel den Hoed marcel.den_hoed@igp.uu.se UU
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