Research Project:
Understanding the Genetic Roots of Obesity Across Populations

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593259

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Description

Obesity is a major global health challenge, with its prevalence on the rise and severe consequences for individuals and healthcare systems. Unraveling the genetic factors that contribute to obesity is crucial for developing targeted and effective prevention and treatment strategies.Our study aims to address this challenge by developing an innovative bioinformatics pipeline to identify genetic factors linked to obesity from large-scale next-generation sequencing datasets. Our analysis pipeline, tailored to the Turkish population structure, integrates innovative techniques for sample-, variant- and gene-based annotation, filtering, and prioritization. This algorithm leverages advanced bioinformatic methods, including variant-, gene-, pathway-, and family-based rare variant aggregation analyses, alongside phenome-wide association tests (PheWAS). Our pipeline refined over 12 years through collaborations with leading experts, including, Sir Stephen O\"Rahilly, Sadaf Farooqi, Jeffrey Friedman and Richard P. Lifton.Our initial analyses have already identified promising candidates. To validate and enrich these findings, we need to test our pipeline with the UK Biobank dataset. The UK Biobank\"s extensive genomic and phenotypic data will enable robust cross-population comparisons and strengthen the reliability of our results. By comparing these two cohorts, we hope to answer a key question: Are the obesity-related genes and rare genetic variants identified in the Turkish population also associated with obesity in the UK Biobank?Our research objectives include: - Developing and implementing a powerful bioinformatics pipeline to process and analyze rare genetic variants linked to obesity traits such as BMI. - Classifying UK Biobank participants into obesity cases and controls based on BMI measurements. - Investigating the rare genetic variants and candidate genes identified in the Turkish cohort to determine their relevance in the UK Biobank.

Keywords

Bilgisayar Bilimleri
Biyoenformatik
Yaşam Bilimleri
Moleküler Biyoloji ve Genetik
Genetik Bozuklukların Moleküler Biyolojisi
Populasyon Biyolojisi
Populasyon Genetiği
Temel Bilimler
Mühendislik ve Teknoloji
Computer Sciences
bioinformatics
Life Sciences
Molecular Biology and Genetics
Genetic Disorders
Population Biology
Population Genetics
Natural Sciences
Engineering and Technology
Mühendislik Bilişim ve Teknoloji (Eng)
Bilgisayar Bilimi Teori ve Yöntem
Temel Bilimler (Sci)
Yaşam Bilimleri (Life)
Bilgisayar Bilimi
Doğa Bilimleri Genel
Çok Disiplinli Bilimler
Gelişimsel Biyoloji
Engineering Computing & Technology (Eng)
Computer Science Theory & Methods
Natural Sciences (Sci)
Life Sciences (Life)
Computer Science
Molecular Biology & Genetics
Natural Sciences General
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Developmental Biology
Embriyoloji
Teorik Bilgisayar Bilimi
Bilgisayar Bilimi Uygulamaları
Bilgisayar Bilimi (çeşitli)
Genel Bilgisayar Bilimi
Moleküler Biyoloji
Multidisipliner
Sağlık Bilimleri
Fizik Bilimleri
Embryology
Theoretical Computer Science
Computer Science Applications
Computer Science (miscellaneous)
General Computer Science
Molecular Biology
Multidisciplinary
Health Sciences
Physical Sciences