Instructor: Terri H. Beaty, Ph.D., Department of
Epidemiology, and Kung-Yee Liang, Ph.D., Department of
Biostatistics, John Hopkins University
Course Outline:
It has become increasingly clear in the
past decade or so that genetic factors play crucial
etiological roles for many common diseases
including cancer, coronary heart disease, allergy
and psychiatric disorders. Genetic epidemiology
is a relatively new field which utilizes
conventional epidemiologic designs and methods
to explore the role genetic factors play in
determining disease, with the ultimate goal of
identifying gene(s) controlling risk to complex
disease. The followings represent some key
questions to be answered in genetic epidemiologic
studies:
- Do disease cluster in families?
- What are the causes of familial aggregations?
- How is genetic susceptibility inherited?
- Is the genetic model useful for predicting risk?
- How to locate susceptibility genes?
In this short course, we discuss, from design
viewpoints, approaches to address some of the
questions listed above. We will first focus on
case control association studies. These include
as a special case the family case-control design to
measure familial aggregation, case-control design
with unrelated (or related) controls to detect
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gene-environment interaction and the case-parent
trio design to test for linkage disequilibrium. The
second part is devoted to designs that are useful
to localize disease gene(s). These include as a
special case the multiplex family design and
affected relative pairs design. For each
design/question considered, we discuss statistical
methods that have been developed, their pros and
cons along with their applications to some real
studies.
About the Instructors:
Dr. Terri Beaty
received her Ph.D. in Human Genetics from
University of Michigan in 1978 and is currently
Professor and Director of Genetic Epidemiology
Program, Department of Epidemiology, Johns
Hopkins University. Dr. Beaty is the co-author
of the book entitled "Fundamentals of Genetic
Epidemiology" in 1993 by Oxford University
Press. Dr. Kung-Yee Liang received his Ph.D. in
Biostatistics from University of Washington in
1982 and is currently Professor at the
Department of Biostatistics, Johns Hopkins
University. Dr. Liang is an ASA fellow and a co-author
(with Peter Diggle and Scott Zeger) of the
book Analysis of Longitudinal Data published in
1994.
Drs.Beaty andLiang areco-Acting Directorsfor
the Quantitative Genetic Program in Public
Health at the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene
& Public Health.
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