Varun Warrier
@vw1234.bsky.social
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📥 338
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Interested in genetics, development, and brain. Associate prof of neurodev. research at Cambridge.
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Varun Warrier
Jeff Spence
3 days ago
How do GWAS and rare variant burden tests rank gene signals? In new work
@nature.com
with
@hakha.bsky.social
,
@jkpritch.bsky.social
, and our wonderful coauthors we find that the key factors are what we call Specificity, Length, and Luck! 🧬🧪🧵
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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Specificity, length and luck drive gene rankings in association studies - Nature
Genetic association tests prioritize candidate genes based on different criteria.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09703-7
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Jonathan Pritchard
2 days ago
Excited to share our latest work on the factors that determine what genes we find (and don't find!) in GWAS and burden tests. We describe a critical concept that we call *specificity*. Led by Jeff Spence and Hakhamanesh Mostafavi:
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It is now clear that more people are being diagnosed as autistic in their teens and as adults than in childhood. A prevailing theory is that those diagnosed later have "milder" form of autism, and later diagnosis entirely due to social factors.
about 1 month ago
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Andrea Ganna
about 1 month ago
🧬💥 Do the genetics that make you develop a disease also help you survive it? Not much. Our new study in Nature Genetics including 9 disease and 7 biobanks shows: • Susceptibility variants ≠ survival • PRSs for onset weak at predicting progression • Lifespan PRS predicts survival better
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Emmanuel A Stamatakis
about 1 month ago
We are delighted to announce the launch of a new Master's Programme in Brain Health and Disease within the Department of Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Cambridge. Applications are now open!
@camneurodept.bsky.social
www.clinical-neuroscience.cam.ac.uk/education/ta...
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Taught MPhil in Brain Health and Disease | Clinical Neurosciences
Our one-year Master’s programme in Brain Health and Disease: Clinical Neurosciences offers an exceptional opportunity for students to engage with the forefront of clinical neuroscience through a dynam...
https://www.clinical-neuroscience.cam.ac.uk/education/taught-mphil-brain-health-and-disease
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We have an opening for a research assistant/associate to study the genetics of neurodevelopmental traits in the general population, and explore their overlap with neurodevelopmental diagnoses. Funds available until Jan 2027.
lnkd.in/eHEcccwC
Please circulate widely.
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LinkedIn
This link will take you to a page that’s not on LinkedIn
https://lnkd.in/eHEcccwC
about 2 months ago
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Yun S. Song
about 2 months ago
We are excited to share GPN-Star, a cost-effective, biologically grounded genomic language modeling framework that achieves state-of-the-art performance across a wide range of variant effect prediction tasks relevant to human genetics.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
(1/n)
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Armin Raznahan
3 months ago
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Very nice method that exploits collider bias to identify independent contributors to outcomes.
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3 months ago
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Steve Smith
3 months ago
Latest processing of UK Biobank brain imaging data - now with 82,000 usable first-scan datasets. Correlating brain IDPs with 13,000 non-imaging variables gives a rich manhattan-stye plot. 324,000 Bonferroni-significant associations.
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Nicky Whiffin
3 months ago
Isn't genetics cool??? Within only 145 nucleotides(!) of a non-coding RNA (RNU4-2) - different variants in distinct regions / structures cause three distinct disorders!!! (all discovered within the last 18 months) 🤯🤓🧬❤️
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Michael Love
3 months ago
Excited to share this preprint from first author Jon Rosen, a postdoctoral fellow in the
@klmohlke.bsky.social
lab and my lab. We examine eQTL study sample size and how this affects signal discovery and rates of colocalization with GWAS.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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Higher eQTL power reveals signals that boost GWAS colocalization
Expression quantitative trait locus (eQTL) studies in human cohorts typically detect at least one regulatory signal per gene, and have been proposed as a way to explain mechanisms of genetic liability...
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.05.668745v1
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Alex Fornito
3 months ago
Interested in Network hubs, cortical hierarchies, and gradients? Ever wonder where they come from? Check our latest review, where we cover different approaches to mapping hubs, models for their evolution, and mechanisms for how they develop:
osf.io/preprints/os...
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Mental Health Platform
3 months ago
ECR Workshop: Proteomics & Mental Health 🧠 9 Oct | Edinburgh | £25 Hosted by
@mqmentalhealth.bsky.social
&
@datamind.bsky.social
in partnership with MHP. Meet the Speakers! Programme & bios online – register:
rebrand.ly/ecr-workshop
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Itai Yanai
3 months ago
Science doesn’t need to be pretty and go according to plan; it just needs to lead to a discovery. If doesn’t have to be done alone or together with someone else; there just needs to be a discovery. It doesn’t need to happen fast or slow; just as long as there’s a discovery, then everybody is happy.
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Hans Fredrik Sunde
3 months ago
Our new paper is out today! 🎉 In it, we use administrative register data to document how psychiatric disorders are strongly linked to parental income, from childhood far into adulthood. Furthermore, we attempt to separate causation and selection using kinship-based models.
doi.org/10.1111/jcpp...
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Awais Aftab
4 months ago
Psychiatric Genetics Beyond Heritability: Q&A with Michel Nivard (
@michelnivard.bsky.social
) “We look for genes as a means to an end—biology, epidemiology, and etiology of complex human outcomes.”
www.psychiatrymargins.com/p/psychiatri...
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Psychiatric Genetics Beyond Heritability: Q&A with Michel Nivard
We look for genes as a means to an end—biology, epidemiology, and etiology of complex human outcomes.
https://www.psychiatrymargins.com/p/psychiatric-genetics-beyond-heritability
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Tabea Schoeler
4 months ago
🚨New preprint is out! How do genetic effects on complex traits change with age? In this work, we compare different approaches to obtain age-varying genetic effects, and show how design and modeling choices can impact the conclusions we draw.
shorturl.at/17snd
A thread 🧵👇
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Design and model choices shape inference of age-varying genetic effects on complex traits
Understanding how genetic influences on complex traits change with age is a fundamental question in genetic epidemiology. Both cross-sectional (between-subject) and longitudinal (within-subject) appro...
https://shorturl.at/17snd
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Joanna
4 months ago
New pre-print! ✨ Antecedents and outcomes of a late ADHD diagnosis in females:
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...
TLDR: This study finds evidence that a delay in ADHD diagnosis has profound and clear consequences by adolescence and this disproportionately disadvantages females (people who are AFAB).
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Antecedents and outcomes of a late attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) diagnosis in females
Females receive an attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) diagnosis at an older age than males. We examined the antecedents and outcomes of later (age 12+) diagnosis in females using data fro...
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.07.25330613v1
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Olivia Wootton
4 months ago
New preprint!🚨 "“The Contribution of Common and Rare Genetic Variation to Emotional and Behavioural Symptoms in Childhood and Adolescence” is out on medRxiv.
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...
Thread 👇
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The Contribution of Common and Rare Genetic Variation to Emotional and Behavioural Symptoms in Childhood and Adolescence
Genetic factors influence vulnerability to common mental health conditions, but their role in early-life mental health remains understudied. We analysed genotype array and exome sequence data from two...
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.01.25330628v1
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Abdel Abdellaoui
5 months ago
Studying the genetics of intelligence measures can help us understand the neurobiology of cognition and neurodevelopmental conditions 🧬🧠 We estimated missing intelligence test scores in
@ukbiobank.bsky.social
to reduce bias and boost power. Preprint:
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...
Thread 👇
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Tamsin Ford
5 months ago
I am proud to have led and contributes to the experts in evidence advisory group- alot of hard work went into this
www.england.nhs.uk/2025/06/nhs-...
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NHS England » NHS England responds to ADHD Taskforce interim report
An independent taskforce set up to tackle challenges in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) care has published its interim report and recommendations today (Friday 20 June 2025). The repor...
https://www.england.nhs.uk/2025/06/nhs-england-responds-to-adhd-taskforce-interim-report/
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Eimear Kenny
5 months ago
📢 Just posted: Our preprint introducing SPC — Spectral Components — is now live on medRxiv! Led by Dr. Ruhollah Shemirani and years in the making, this method offers a robust, scalable way to adjust for recent population structure in genomic analyses. 🔗
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...
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SPC: a SPectral Component approach to address recent population structure in genomic analysis
Population structure is a well-known confounder in statistical genetics, particularly in genome-wide association studies (GWAS), where it can lead to inflated test statistics and spurious associations...
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.06.04.25328990v1
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Marcella Montagnese
5 months ago
New preprint out! We mapped brain vulnerability in Alzheimer’s using MIND networks + population modelling. Put this together with a brilliant team
@raibethlehem.bsky.social
@sarahmorganuk.bsky.social
and many more still making their way to Bluesky 🧠
doi.org/10.1101/2025.06.10.25328978
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Gerome Breen
5 months ago
Excited about our new preprint: 1st successful genome-wide study of >61,000 panic attack and 29,000 panic disorder cases.
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...
We find 17 associations & evidence that peripheral neurons in eye, lungs and heart are involved in panic & other psychiatric disorders 1/n
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Varun Warrier
Eivind Ystrom
5 months ago
🧵 THREAD: Preprint from
@chrisrayner.bsky.social
reveals how to fix selection bias in the Norwegian
#MoBa
study using population-wide registry data! For the first time, we can quantify and adjust for selection bias in this major epidemiological resource. Spread the good news!
osf.io/preprints/os...
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OSF
https://osf.io/preprints/osf/ymk37_v1
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Varun Warrier
Eivind Ystrom
5 months ago
1/13 New preprint out! We developed methods to test a key assumption in family-based genetic studies: that siblings don’t genetically influence each other’s traits. Spoiler: mostly they don’t, but there’s a twist with ADHD ratings at age 3 👶
osf.io/preprints/ps...
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https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/b4c76_v1
https://t.co/d4Q6X1vzAZ
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Varun Warrier
Mike Inouye
5 months ago
📣 Latest from the lab: Performance of deep-learning-based approaches to improve polygenic scores
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Its thought deep learning will substantially improve PGS but the reality is MANY have tried but no/little gain has been seen so far. Here we report our negative results.
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Melanie de Wit
5 months ago
(1/9) 📣 OUT NOW! 📣 So excited to share that our systematic review and meta-analysis on the autism polygenic score is now published in JAACAP Open
@jaacapjournals.bsky.social
.
doi.org/10.1016/j.ja...
A (long) thread of our main findings ⤵️
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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaacop.2025.04.001
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Ted Schwaba
6 months ago
Extremely excited to share the first effort of the Revived Genomics of Personality Consortium: A highly-powered, comprehensive GWAS of the Big Five personality traits in 1.14 million participants from 46 cohorts.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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Xuyu Qian
6 months ago
Today in
@nature.com
, we report a spatial single-cell atlas of human cortical development, revealing surprisingly early specification of human cortical layers and areas. We built an interactive browser to explore the spatial data:
walshlab.org/research/cor...
Paper link below 👇
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Rafeeque Mavoor
6 months ago
🧵5 Top Free Alternatives to BioRender for Scientific Illustrations! These five websites offer free scientific illustrations for biologists. Great for presentations, research papers and other research communication needs. Save and share the post!
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New review on the genetics of schizophrenia, depression, and bipolar disorder.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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Genomics of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder
Nature Reviews Genetics - Genomic advances have enhanced our understanding of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder, revealing genetic architectures and risk mechanisms...
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41576-025-00843-0.epdf?sharing_token=OmlQ0ZVaQDCSqNU3vuk4ptRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0OJNfj4DCL-2quVmavwgH8WHnIJhMYq7pR-G6IPNl72Yz_moyJPT7KvH6sefhHHO00iGquvk_ZxoJ1V0fIMc5Ze1xHzlEACmbN2TVv9C6F_tioW_cNVX1yZNRrsWXQht0o%3D
6 months ago
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Abdel Abdellaoui
6 months ago
Check out our new OCD GWAS (53,660 cases and 2,044,417 controls) in
@natgenet.nature.com
🧬🧠 Genetic risk was associated with excitatory neurons in the cortex and hippocampus. There was much genetic overlap with anxiety, depression, and anorexia. Open access:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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Angelica Ronald
6 months ago
Our gene discovery project on age at onset of walking is out today! Find the paper here
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Huge thanks to the cohorts, collaborators & coauthors, in particular first author Dr Anna Gui 1/n
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Genome-wide association meta-analysis of age at onset of walking in over 70,000 infants of European ancestry - Nature Human Behaviour
A genome-wide association study of age at onset of walking in over 70,000 infants found 11 significant loci. Age at onset of walking showed SNP heritability of 24%, a reliable polygenic score and gene...
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-025-02145-1?utm_source=rct_congratemailt&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=oa_20250507&utm_content=10.1038/s41562-025-02145-1
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Cedric Boeckx
6 months ago
Delighted to share our new preprint, the outcome of many years of collaborative work with Giuseppe Testa’s group, both at the bench & in front of the computer, probing human brain evolution using organoids. We tried something cool, and learned a lot 🧪🧫🧠🧬 [follow 🧵]
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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Regulatory logic of human cortex evolution by combinatorial perturbations
Comparative genomic studies between contemporary and extinct hominins revealed key evolutionary modifications, but their number has hampered a system level investigation of their combined roles in sca...
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.04.28.651083v1
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Alex Strudwick Young
6 months ago
I am recruiting a quantitative/computational postdoc to my group at UCLA. This is a great opportunity to work on foundational theory, methods, and software in statistical genetics. Link to apply:
recruit.apo.ucla.edu/JPF10275
. Please repost!
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Pleased to share new work from our group, led by PhD student Edward He. Edward joined the group as a summer student interested in the genetics of resting state functional connectivity, measured using graph networks.
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...
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https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.04.27.25326490v1
6 months ago
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Dr Lucy Foulkes
7 months ago
This is a *key* new paper in the world of school mental health interventions A very large trial (N=6388) testing a universal CBT-based app for adolescent depression (13-14y) No effects found (on depression, anxiety, distress or insomnia) (🧵)
mentalhealth.bmj.com/content/28/1...
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Pleased to share our recent work led by Raphael Bourque where we ask if it's possible to predict co-occurring intellectual disability among autistic individuals using genetic and developmental data. Early identification of these children may be useful for targeted support.
bit.ly/4jFY5Nh
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Genomic Models to Predict Outcomes in Autistic Children
This prognostic study evaluates the predictive performance of combining genetic variants and developmental milestones to predict intellectual disability in autistic children.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2832987
7 months ago
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Nicky Whiffin
7 months ago
🚨I could not be more excited to share our new preprint on saturation genome editing of the small nuclear RNA (snRNA) RNU4-2:
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...
A super fun collaboration with incredible duo
@gregfindlay.bsky.social
@joachimdejonghe.bsky.social
from
@crick.ac.uk
🧬🖥️🩺 🧵1/12
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Saturation genome editing of RNU4-2 reveals distinct dominant and recessive neurodevelopmental disorders
Recently, de novo variants in an 18 nucleotide region in the centre of RNU4-2 were shown to cause ReNU syndrome, a syndromic neurodevelopmental disorder (NDD) that is predicted to affect tens of thous...
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.04.08.25325442v1
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Abdel Abdellaoui
8 months ago
In every civilization, people end up sorted into levels of socio-economic status (SES). We explore the history, present, and future of scientific research on the complicated relationship between SES and DNA in
@naturehumbehav.bsky.social
💰🧬🎓 Link:
rdcu.be/efacK
Thread below 👇🏽
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Emanuele Osimo
9 months ago
Early
#Psychosis
Mental Health Mission clinical research fellow posts in Manchester. NHS experience required. ideal for post-F2 doctors considering psychiatry and junior NHS psychiatry residents
www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DMA485/c...
@gkmurray.bsky.social
@drkkendall.bsky.social
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Clinical Research Fellow in Psychiatry (2 Posts available) at The University of Manchester
An academic position as a Clinical Research Fellow in Psychiatry (2 Posts available) is being advertised on jobs.ac.uk. Click now to find more details and explore additional academic job opportunities...
https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DMA485/clinical-research-fellow-in-psychiatry-2-posts-available
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Tamsin Ford
8 months ago
Bullying is our most tractable public mental health threat - there is lots we can do to reduce its prevalence & impact
add a skeleton here at some point
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Varun Warrier
Alessandro Gozzi
8 months ago
Can we use brain scans to identify biologically distinct "autisms"? And If so, how? In our latest cross-species study 🐭👨 with
@iitalk.bsky.social
we dive into these questions! Find out more here 👇👇
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Thread below 🧵 1/n
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Wonderful collaboration with
@sofievalk.bsky.social
and colleagues on this work investigating the genetic correlates of functional gradients of the human cortex. Led by
@wanb.bsky.social
.
add a skeleton here at some point
8 months ago
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Dr Lucy Foulkes
9 months ago
Important new evidence published today: large-scale DofE trial (N=12,166) found that two universal MH awareness interventions, in secondary schools, led to an *increase* in emotional symptoms at long term (9-12 month) follow up
tinyurl.com/4ffday8y
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Dr Gareth Hawkes
9 months ago
Excited to finally share that our paper looking at the effect of rare non-coding variants using WGS on circulating protein levels in the UKB has been released in Nature Genetics
@naturegenet.bsky.social
! We now analyse the full 3,000 circulating proteins in all 50,000 individuals
rdcu.be/ea16i
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Whole-genome sequencing analysis identifies rare, large-effect noncoding variants and regulatory regions associated with circulating protein levels
Nature Genetics - Rare variant association analysis of plasma proteins using whole-genome sequencing data in 54,306 individuals in the UK Biobank demonstrates that combining both single-variant and...
https://rdcu.be/ea16i
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Pleased to share new work from our group, led by the talented Yuanjun (Genie) Gu, who is not on Bluesy.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
We ask if there is *any* shared genetics between autism and some selected structural MRI phenotypes.
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Polygenic scores for autism are associated with reduced neurite density in adults and children from the general population - Molecular Psychiatry
Molecular Psychiatry - Polygenic scores for autism are associated with reduced neurite density in adults and children from the general population
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-025-02927-z
9 months ago
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An exciting opportunity to work an important problem using cutting edge methods with fantastic people.
add a skeleton here at some point
9 months ago
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