OxTalks will soon move to the new Halo platform and will become 'Oxford Events.' There will be a need for an OxTalks freeze. This was previously planned for Friday 14th November – a new date will be shared as soon as it is available (full details will be available on the Staff Gateway).
In the meantime, the OxTalks site will remain active and events will continue to be published.
If staff have any questions about the Oxford Events launch, please contact halo@digital.ox.ac.uk
Currently, large-scale studies of complex trait are conducted predominantly in Europeans. The projects that I talk about highlight the importance expanding human genomics studies to divers populations and show how differences in genetic ancestry can be leveraged to learn about the genetic basis of complex traits. Specifically, I will share examples from our recently published work on genetics of height which led to the discovery of a novel, population-specific variant that reduces height by 2.2 cm per allele (Asgari, et. al, Nature, 2020). I will also share results from our ongoing work on the role of Native Peruvian ancestry in susceptibility to tuberculosis (TB) showing that Native ancestry can increase TB progression risk independently of socio-demographic and environmental confounders Asgari, et. al, medRxiv, 2020). To conclude, I will discuss how the frameworks that I discussed above can be applied to future human genetic studies including studies of host genomics in order to improve understanding of the biological processes involved in immunity, facilitate drug development, and reduce health disparities.
