Biodemography is one of five major research themes at CDHA. With supplemental funding to the Center’s P30 center grant, affiliate Qiongshi Lu will continue to expand CDHA’s work in this field through the project “Quantifying and Understanding Indirect Genetic Effects on Alzheimer’s Disease.”
Using genetic data in the UK Biobank and public summary statistics of genome-wide association studies, Lu and colleagues aim to provide new insights into the genetic basis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). By leveraging biobank-scale data containing rich measures on health processes as well as genome-wide data collection of the respondents, Lu hopes to address current research gaps by quantifying indirect genetic associations for AD. Additionally, Lu hopes this new project will identify AD biomarkers, behavioral, and cognitive traits, and other related phenotypes associated with the indirect genetic components of AD.