Researchers from the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center identified new genome-wide gene variants at 12 different locations associated with breast cancer in women of African ancestry. They discovered that variants in three of the 12 were associated with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). Historically, women of African ancestry have been largely underrepresented in…

A major international collaboration has completed a meta-analysis that identifies 12 risk loci for suicide attempt using data from two pivotal large-scale genomic studies. These loci were mostly intergenic—along stretches of DNA located between genes, and implicated DRD2, SLCA9, FURIN, NLGN1, SOX5, PDE48, and CACNG2.    Controlling for the well-known association of suicide…

A GWAS study of almost 3.4 million people with multiple ancestry has uncovered more than 3,800 genetic variants potentially associated with smoking and alcohol use. The subjects had African, American, East Asian, and European ancestry. The study appeared in Nature this week and was led by Scott Vrieze, Department of…

Eighteen new genetic risk factors for opioid use disorder (OUD) and related substance use disorders have been found though a large-scale genome-wide association study. Previously, there was only one gene linked so far to these conditions. The findings, published in Molecular Psychiatry, were made by a team of Yale scientists. “Our…

Epidemiological data have long linked depression with Alzheimer’s disease (AD), a neurodegenerative disease characterized by progressive dementia that affects nearly six million Americans. Now, a new study identifies common genetic factors in both depression and AD.  Importantly, the researchers found that depression played a causal role in AD development, and…

An international team of scientists has used atlases of the human brain informed by genetics to identify hundreds of genomic loci. They found 440 genome-wide significant loci in the discovery cohort and 800 in a post-hoc combined meta-analysis. The work was led by Chi-Hua Chen, PhD, associate professor in the…

A multi-ancestry genome-wide association study (GWAS),  led by scientists from the Global Lipids Genetics Consortium (GLGC) recently analyzed genomic data from nearly 1.65 million individuals to narrow down the number of genomic variants strongly associated with blood lipid levels and compute more predictive polygenic risk scores for heart disease. Increased…

Understanding the genetic variations associated with chronic kidney disease represents an important step for drug development. Now, and in what they claim is one of the most comprehensive genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of its kind, researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, have generated one of the…

A meta-analysis of nearly 200,000 men has revealed 22 new genetic locations that could be susceptible to inherited testicular germ cell tumors (TGCT). The findings increase by 40% the number of regions known to be associated with this type of cancer. The multi-institutional meta-analysis was conducted by researchers from the…

A global initiative founded in March 2020 called the COVID-19 Host Genomics Initiative has released a comprehensive summary of their findings, which reveal 13 loci in the human genome that are strongly associated with infection or severe COVID-19. The researchers also identified causal factors such as smoking and high body…

A genome-wide association study (GWAS) has been used to detect an emerging highly pathogenic variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. This approach could be useful for flagging dangerous variants, according to Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and MIT researchers. Using GWAS and mortality data, the researchers pinpointed a mutation…

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) recently used a combination of a genome-wide association study (GWAS) and single-cell epigenomics to map the genetic underpinnings of type 1 diabetes (T1D)—a condition that affects more than 1.6 million Americans. In doing so, they have made two significant contributions: 1) identified…

  A lacunar stroke is a type of ischemic stroke that occurs when blood flow to one of the small arteries deep within the brain becomes blocked and represent about 20% of all strokes, according to the National Institutes of Health. Damage to the blood vessels and interruption to blood…

Genetic associations between inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and stress related to depression have been uncovered by a novel study that combined 3D genomic mapping with publicly available data from genome-wide association studies (GWAS). Carried out by researchers at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), the study further implicated new genes involved…

Researchers at Queen Mary University of London, the Broad Institute of MIT, and Harvard have found hundreds of new links between people’s DNA and the heart’s electrical activity, according to a study of almost 300,000 people. The research “Multi-ancestry GWAS of the electrocardiographic PR interval identifies 202 loci underlying cardiac…