June 13 – June 15, 2024
Overview
This summer school aims at providing guidelines on optimal practice in designing, analyzing, and interpreting genetic epidemiological studies, for those who would like to actively analyze DNA sequencing from whole genome sequencing or whole exome sequencing studies (NGS), genome-wide association studies (GWAs), candidate gene or even single genetic marker studies. Knowledge and awareness about all steps of a genetic epidemiological study, including planning, data preparation, quality control or statistical analysis will be considered as this is crucial for the cost-efficient use of these data. Special attention will be given to data generation and quality control procedures of sequencing and genotyping technologies. Confounding due to population heterogeneity, i.e., population stratification, or multi-ethnic populations and cryptic relatedness are important in genetic studies. Approaches to take these challenges into account will be discussed. The concepts of imputing missing genotypes and haplotype inference will be explained. Replication and meta-analysis are commonly used in genetic epidemiological studies, and these concepts will be introduced. Finally, Mendelian randomization and the underlying assumptions will be explained.
Learning outcomes
- the basics of molecular genetics
- the most important study designs for association analysis: case-control and cohort designs, designs for quantitative traits
- the problems of population stratification and cryptic relatedness
- the most important genetic marker types and their characteristics
- the most important genotyping technologies, such as TaqMan for the analysis of few genetic markers, microarrays for genome-wide association studies and whole exome and whole genome sequencing studies
- the quality control procedures and measures for the different genotyping technologies
- how to conduct simple association analyses
- how to estimate genetic effects
- how to deal with multiple testing
- the most important concepts for gene-based analyses using rare variants
- how to biologically interpret genetic variants
- Optional: how to calculate required sample sizes for association studies
- Optional: haplotype-based analyses
- Optional: the concept of Mendelian randomization studies
Venue
Campus building, Lecture Hall Parsenn
Medicine Campus Davos
Herman-Burchard-Str. 1
CH-7265 Davos Wolfgang
Registration
- Email: info@cardio-care.ch
- Phone: +41 81 410 1801
Your registration should contain the following:
- Full name
- Status: Student (bachelor or master), non-profit academic, industry
- Affiliation (university, institute or company name)
- A short paragraph about your work, how this course will benefit you
Registration deadline
May 10, 2024. The number of participants will be limited to 30.
Instructors
Raphael Betschart
Dr. Cristian Riccio
Dr. Felix Thalén
Prof. Dr. Andreas Ziegler
Course fee
- Students (bachelor or master students only): 50 CHF
- Academic and non-profit: 150 CHF
- Industry: 300 CHF
Accommodation
We have pre-reserved 15 double rooms at Hotel Ochsen at a special discounted rate. These rooms are available on a first-come, first-served basis and can be secured by completing payment by May 20, 2024. Please note that after this deadline, participants will be responsible for making their own accommodation arrangements. For details on the rates and payment methods, or if you have any queries, please contact info@cardio-care.ch.
Course material
The textbook “A Statistical Approach to Genetic Epidemiology”, 2nd ed., by Andreas Ziegler and Inke R. König is not a requirement but may be beneficial and can be obtained from the course instructors.
Organiser
Cardio-CARE, a non-profit research programme of the Kühne Foundation.
Financial support
We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of this summer school by
