Complex Genetic Inheritance of Rare and Common Variation in Autism

To get a more granular understanding of how rare variants and common variants contribute to quantitative variation in psychiatric traits, my lab is leading the whole genome analysis of rare genetic diseases that are being deeply characterized with dimensional measures of psychopathology. In collaboration with clinical research groups at several institutions, we have formed a consortium of rare disease research groups called the Genes to Mental Health Network (G2MH). This project will investigate how multiple genetic factors influence clinical features of autism using rare variant genotypes and polygenic risk scores derived from whole genome sequencing. The trainee on this project will learn how to carry out statistical genetic analysis of large whole genome and phenotype datasets.