Integrated Cancer Research Center Seminar

"Evolutionary Genomics of Prostate Cancer in African Men"

Joseph Lachance, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
School of Biological Sciences
Georgia Tech

 

To determine why African men are more likely to suffer from prostate cancer (CaP), we integrated GWAS results and scans of selection with allele frequency data from 64 global populations.  Despite substantial overlap in genetic risk scores across populations, we find that predicted CaP risk is highest in West Africans and that a small number of loci drive these differences in risk.  There is a strong concordance between genetic risk scores and clinical estimates of CaP mortality.  Although most CaP-associated loci are evolving neutrally, we find multiple instances where alleles have hitchhiked to high frequencies with linked locally adaptive alleles.

Start Date
End Date
Event Contact Info

John McDonald, Ph.D. - faculty host

Event Phone
(404) 894-6228
Event images
Integrated Cancer Research Center
guid
572491