What's New

 

Publications, publications everywhere

Manuscripts co-authored by PMAGErs David Hunter, Peter Kraft and Aditi Hazra have been freshly published or are about to appear in upcoming editions of top scientific journals.  Scroll down to our Publications section for details and links to available articles!

 

Double Header

June has proven a busy month for Alkes Price, PhD, who has seen not one, but two papers published in PLoS Genetics. Scroll down to our Publications section for details and links to the full text of both articles!

Better get there early if you want a seat...

A standing-room only crowd of over 100 attended a session, organized and chaired by Deputy Director Peter Kraft, on "building and evaluating genetic risk prediction models" at the Joint Statistial Meetings held from 2-5 August in Washington, DC.  Mitch Gail from the National Cancer Instutute and Nancy Cook from Harvard Medical School and HSPH presented papers on alternative methods for measuring the clinical utility of risk prediction models. Tianxi Cai from HSPH spoke on flexible, multi-marker "pathway" tests that can detect genetic signatures associated with complex traits, and Dan Schaid from the Mayo clinic was the discussant.  

 

Three Giant Steps for PMAGE-kind

David Hunter, MBBS, ScD, will assume the position of Dean for Academic Affairs at the Harvard School of Public Health on August 1st.  Dr. Hunter began his career at HSPH in 1986 and has served as Director of the Program in Molecular and Genetic Epidemiolgy (PMAGE) since 2004. 

Peter Kraft, PhD, will assume the position of Deputy Director of the Program in Molecular and Genetic Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health on August 1st.  Dr. Kraft first came to HSPH in 2003 and was instrumental in the development and implementation of PMAGE in 2004.  In addition, he will also become Co-Director of the Program in Quantitative Genomics (PQG) on 1st August.

Immaculata De Vivo, PhD, has been named Director of the DF/HCC High-Throughput Polymorphism Detection Core.  She will officially succeed David Hunter as Core Director on October 1st.  Dr. De Vivo began her Harvard career in 1998 and has been a key Member of the Program since its inception.

Commencement 2009: Chunyan He

It is with mixed emotions that we celebrate Chunyan He's graduation from the School of Public Health on June 4th.  Chunyan has been a post-doctoral student in the Program for the past 5 years and has accepted a faculty position in the Department of Public Health at the University of Indiana.  We thank her for 5 years of hard work and congratulate her on her swift success.  We wish her the best of luck in her future endeavors, and most of all -- we will miss her!

            

 

PRESS RELEASES, PUBLICATIONS AND INTERVIEWS

New genetic determinants of plasma B12, B6 and homocysteine discovered

In prospective studies lower plasma folate, vitamin B6 or B12, and increased plasma homocysteine levels are associated with colorectal cancer, pancreatic cancer, prostate cancer and breast cancer particularly among those who consume moderate to high levels of alcohol, which interferes with folate metabolism. In an upcoming issue of Human Molecular Geneteics, PMAGE member Aditi Hazra and colleagues report a genome-wide association study for plasma homocysteine, plasma folate, vitamin B12 and vitamin B6. Novel genome-wide significant associations include SNPs in MUT and plasma vitamin B12, ALPL and plasma vitamin B6, and GPR51 and plasma homocysteine. These data will elucidate which population subgroups may benefit most from additional B-vitamin intake due to genetic variation in B-vitamin metabolism or absorption.
Human Molecular Genetics, http://hmg.oxfordjournals.org/

 

Blood type linked to pancreatic cancer risk (Abstract)

PMAGE members Peter Kraft and David Hunter are co-authors on a paper linking genetic variation at the ABO blood group locus to risk of pancreatic cancer¹. This paper was highlighted as an "Editor's Pick" in the 28 August 2009 issue of Science magazine. Although rare, pancreatic cancer is still very difficult to treat and sadly quite lethal--it is the 3^rd

leading cause of cancer mortality in the United States². ABO blood groups are associated with immune surveillance and inflammatory response; this intriguing finding may lead to novel insights into the biology of pancreatic cancers and potential treatments.

Another senior author, Harvard Medical School Associate Professor Charles Fuchs, played a key role in organizing the PanScan Project in the fall of 2006. PanScan is funded by NCI's Epidemiology and Genetics Research Program (EGRP) and is a collaboration of investigators at 13 institutions, including the National Cancer Institute, to investigate the genetics of pancreatic cancer.

¹ Amundadottir L, Kraft P, et al. Genome-wide association study identifies variants in the ABO locus associated with susceptibility to pancreatic cancer. Nat Genet. 2009 Sep;41(9):986-90. Epub 2009 Aug 2
² American Cancer Society 2009, http://www.cancer.org/docroot/home/index.asp
 
Nature and Nature Genetics online: http://www.nature.com/

 

 

The impact of divergence time on the nature of population structure: an example from Iceland

Faculty member Alkes Price demonstrates the utility and precision of HAPMIX software in the inference of local ancestry and its recent application to African-American and Mozabite haplotypes. 
PLoS Genet. 2009 Jun;5(6):e1000505. Epub 2009 Jun 5. PMCID: PMC2684636  http://www.plosgenetics.org/

 

Sensitive detection of chromosomal segments of distinct ancestry in admixed populations
PMAGE Faculty Alkes Price shows how the regional geographic ancestry of individuals from Iceland was determined using dense genotype data and that allele frequency differences between regions of Iceland are due to genetic drift since the settling of Iceland, rather than ancestral populations.
PLoS Genet. 2009 Jun;5(6):e1000519. Epub 2009 Jun 19. PMCID: PMC2689842  http://www.plosgenetics.org/


Wahrsager Im Labor (Prophets in the Laboratory)
Deputy Director Peter Kraft was quoted in a feature in the 25 May edition of German magazine Der Spiegel.  The article focused on the effectiveness of genome analysis, and the manner in which data are presented in scientific publications.  Also quoted was David Altshuler of the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT.  For a Google English translation of this page, click here at your own risk -- but be forewarned that even if you don't speak a word of German, the original article might still end up making more sense to you.

25 May 2009, Der Spiegel  Nr. 22/25.5.09 p. 128-30  http://www.spiegel.de/ 

 

GENOMICS: Personal Risk Prediction: Not There Yet

PMAGE Director David Hunter and Faculty member Peter Kraft among the researchers who discuss the effectiveness of increasingly popular personal genome scans and individual risk tests.
17 April 2009, FOCUS Online

 

Genes show Limited Value in Predicting Diseases
Director David Hunter and Faculty member Peter Kraft were quoted in an article on the inefficacy of current personal genomic testing methodologies.
16 April 2009, The New York Times p. A1  www.nytimes.com/

Newly Identified Genetic Variants Found to Increase Breast Cancer Risk
Two common genetic variants that increase the risk of breast cancer in women of European ancestry have been identified in a large collaborative study of genetic markers.  The manuscript has been published in the advance online section of Nature Genetics.
29 March 2009, HSPH Press Release 

 

PMAGE Retreat 2009
On 9 March 2009, the Program held a day-long retreat at the Harvard Club on Commonwealth Ave.  The Retreat gave PMAGE faculty, staff and post-doctoral students the opportunity to present data, increase their understanding of each others' roles within the Program, and engage in dialogue about progress and goals for the future.