The American Psychosomatic Society

Handouts for the 2004 American Psychosomatic Society's
62nd Annual Scientific Conference
Pre-conference Workshop: GENETIC EPIDEMIOLOGY IN PSYCHOSOMATIC DISORDERS
Presented Wednesday, March 3, 2004

This workshop was co-sponsored by Molecular Staging, Inc.

Learn more about them by visiting their website at www.molecularstaging.com

Helpful resources in getting started

Conference presenters:

Jeanne McCaffery, Ph.D. Jeanne_McCaffery@brown.edu
Frank Treiber, Ph.D. ftreiber@mail.mcg.edu
Eco De Geus, Ph.D. eco@psy.vu.nl
Yanbin Dong M.D., M.Sc., Ph.D. ydong@mail.mcg.edu
Janine Flory, Ph.D. Janine.Flory@mssm.edu
Harold Snieder, Ph.D. hsnieder@mail.mcg.edu

Behavior Genetics:

Introductory books/webpages:

http://psych.colorado.edu/hgss/
Text, exercises, practice tests, and links for learning human genetics supporting the book Human Genetics for the Social Sciences by Gregory Carey (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc , 2002) The book introduces students of the social and behavioral sciences to the basic biological concepts underscoring the study of genetics. Carey explains basic biological concepts while covering principles of genetics, evolution and evolutionary psychology, and the genetics of individual differences. Selective coverage of research in genetics, focusing on areas of most relevance to the social sciences, enables students to appreciate the role of genetics in everyday human behavior.

http://statgen.iop.kcl.ac.uk/bgim/
The Behavioural Genetics Interactive Modules are a series of freely-available interactive on-line resources and computer programs by Shaun Purcell. They are designed to accompany Statistical Methods in Quantitative Genetics, the appendix to the 4th edition of Behavioral Genetics by Robert Plomin, John DeFries, Gerald McClearn & Peter McGuffin (New York: Worth Publishers, 2001)

Faraone, S.V., Tsuang, M.T. & Tsuang. D.W. (1999). Genetics of Mental Disorders: A guide for
students, clinicians and researchers. Guilford Press. A very good intro to
psychiatric genetics, although focus on psychiatric disease, the beh med
audience would appreciate it.

Software:

http://www.vcu.edu/mx/
Mike Neale’s Mx is a matrix algebra interpreter and numerical optimizer for structural equation modeling and other types of statistical modeling of data. It is, formany behavior geneticists, the preferred package for analysis of ((extended) (twin)) family data.

http://www.psy.vu.nl/mxbib
Danielle Posthuma’s ready-to-run exemplary Mx-jobs for almost all twin family analyses, including association and linkage.

Academic Societies:

http://www.ists.qimr.edu.au/ (international society twin studies)
http://www.bga.org/ (behavior genetics association)
http://www.faseb.org/genetics/ (human genetics societies)
http://www.genepi.org (genetic epidemiology)

Biometrical Genetics:

“Introductory” books:

Plomin, R., Defries, J.C., McClearn, G.E., McGuffin, P. (2000). Behavioral Genetics, 4th Edition. W H Freeman & Co.

Daniel L. Hartl (2002) A Primer of Population Genetics (3rd Ed.) Sinauer Associates, Inc
Introduction to population genetics. For undergraduates, graduates, and professional researchers. Emphasis is on the explanation of the equations rather than the derivation.

Ott J (1999) Analysis of Human Genetic Linkage (3rd Ed) Johns Hopkins University Press

Falconer, S. & Mackay, T. (1996) Introduction to Quantitative Genetics (4th Ed.) Addison-Wesley Pub Co

Lynch, M. & Walsh, B. (1998) Genetics and Analysis of Quantitative Traits Sinauer Associates, Inc

Molecular Genetics:

Strachan, T., Read, A. (2003). Human Molecular Genetics, 3rd Edition. Garland Pub

Online molecular genetics texts (under bookshelf):
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi

Functional genomics special issues from Science:
http://www.sciencemag.org/feature/plus/sfg/special/index.shtml

And from Nature:
http://www.nature.com/genomics/

Ethics:
http://www.nuffieldbioethics.org/behaviouralgenetics/

Glossary of genetic terms:
http://www.genome.gov/glossary.cfm

NCBI home page:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
(several useful tools including BLAST server, LocusLink, ORF finder etc.)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Omim/ (Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man)

National Human Genome Research Institute home page:
http://www.nhgri.nih.gov/

Ensembl:
http://www.ensembl.org/
(Graphical displays of GoldenPath analysis results. Search from the homepage by chromosome region, marker, gene name, sequence accession number etc. From the graphical display of a region, you can potentially access a wealth of information about a gene (supporting evidence for gene structure, LocusLink, OMIM, protein domain information, UNIGENE (EST) cluster information, expression information)

University of California, Santa Cruz:
http://genome.ucsc.edu/
Graphical displays of GoldenPath analysis results. Alternative or complement to Ensembl (contains Exofish ecores (conserved regions between human and freshwater puffer fish, Tetraodon)

Organizations / research institutes:
http://research.marshfieldclinic.org/genetics/ (Marshfield laboratories)
http://www2.qimr.edu.au/davidD/ ((Queensland Institute Medical Research:
David Duffy’s page with very useful stuff and further links)

Some additional recommended conferences:

Mx workshop: Introductory and advanced courses in Genetic Epidemiology using Mx software. http://ibgwww.colorado.edu/workshop2004/

Jackson Laboratory Courses: A wide variety of animal and human genetics courses throughout the year, including some focusing on genetics of complex disease. Located in Bar Harbor, Maine! They are still accepting new applicants for the general course from July 18-30th, 2004. The short course of genetic approaches to complex heart, lung and blood diseases is in October, 2004.
http://www.jax.org/courses/index.html

4th International Meeting on the Genetic Epidemiology of
Complex Traits is organized once every 2 years and takes place in
early April 2004. This year there is a workshop on Merlin/QTDT and
SOLAR, see the following link for the program:
http://www.twin-research.ac.uk/PROGRAM_2004.pdf

More workshops listed at:
http://www.bga.org/training.html

Presentations

Introduction to linkage and family based
designs to study the genetic
epidemiology of complex traits
Harold Snieder

Optimal design of association studies haplotypes, transmission disequilibrium tests & gene-environment interaction
Harold Snieder

Quantitative Genetics
and Twin Studies
An Introduction!
Eco de Geus

Why (an overview of) twin research?
Eco de Geus

Introduction to Genetic Association Studies
Janine Flory

Genetic Association Studies: Some Examples
Janine Flory

Ethical Issues in Genetic Research
Janine Flory

Recommended Articles

Dissecting the genetic architecture of the
cardiovascular and renal stress response
Harold Snieder, et. al.

“Are We There Yet?”: Deciding When One Has Demonstrated Specific
Genetic Causation in Complex Diseases and Quantitative Traits
Grier P. Page, et. al.