Course Topics

2010
Topics covered in this course include:

Basics of Population Genetics

Evaluating evidence of a genetic component to the trait
Modes of inheritance, penetrance and trait expression
Allele frequencies and Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium
Linkage vs. association, linkage disequilibrium

Phenotype definition

Strategies for collecting phenotypic data
Defining a phenotype for study
Intermediate phenotypes

Study designs

Candidate gene studies
Genome-wide studies
Family-based versus population based study designs

Tools and technologies

Human genome project sequence/HapMap data
Single nucleotide polymorphism detection
Copy number variation analysis
Large-scale sequencing

Association studies and linkage disequilibrium

Family-based and population based designs
Control of population structure
Admixture mapping
Genome-wide association

Quantitative traits

Linkage analysis
Association analysis

Evaluating functional relevance of trait loci

Bioinformatics approaches
Molecular approaches

Complex patterns and data mining

Gene-gene interaction Gene-environment interaction
"Genomic convergence": integration of different data streams

These topics will be covered through lectures by course faculty, informal discussions of particular examples from the literature, and discussions of students' own research projects and experience.