Tag Archives: GWAS



Travel Grants Spring 2012 winner: Catarina Correia

And finally, a big round of applause for our first place travel grant winner, Dr. Catarina Correia! She researches protein interaction networks in autism spectrum disorders and presented her recent results at the International Meeting for Autism Research in Toronto, ON last month. We’re glad the travel grant helped her attend!  

I am currently pursuing a post-doctoral project at Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência and Instituto Nacional de Saúde Dr. Ricardo Jorge (Portugal) working on the analysis of GWAS carried out by the Autism Genome Project (AGP), a large international consortium for autism genetics. My research aims to develop a network-based approach for GWAS data analysis by combining association results with protein-protein interaction data, and characterize potentially pathogenic CNVs identified in the AGP whole genome CNV analysis.  Read more…

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Q&A with Aisha Furqan

NextBio curation scientist Aisha Furqan“Everybody knows about genes that are studied. How do you find information about genes that aren’t? Where do you even start looking?”

As a graduate student, I was always amazed by—and a little skeptical of—any software that promised to help my data woes. I’m still curious to know what goes on behind the scenes, so to speak, when a website manages to take my search terms and raw data and turn them into pretty graphs and new correlations. Watch this space to find out about the “behind the scenes” people and ideas that shape NextBio.

We’re excited to bring you “Life @ NextBio”, a series which spotlights our curators, engineers, advisors, and others as they talk about life and work at NextBio. This week, meet Aisha Furqan, associate scientist in Curation, recent graduate from the Biological Sciences Department at Cal Poly Pomona, and enthusiastic NextBio user.
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Bypassing ‘fat’ genes?

Growing evidence suggests gene variants may influence the outcome of bariatric surgery

Most people looking to shed a few pounds turn to alternatives like drinking less soda or taking the stairs at work. But for those beyond the reach of dietary and lifestyle intervention, gastric surgery is often the only viable option that presents itself. From 1998 to 2005, the number of weight-loss operations performed in the United States alone rose more than 8-fold, from about 12,000 cases to over 110,000.

There are already several studies that identify so-called ‘fat genes’, or genetic variants linked to obesity and related disorders. Recently, three research groups also published genome-wide association studies (GWAS) identifying obesity-related associations in subjects undergoing some form of gastric surgery* .
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