Molecular genetic evidence for complex traits such as schizophrenia has accumulated rapidly over the last five years. In this talk, Dr. Keller will discuss four aspects of the genetic architecture of schizophrenia that molecular genetic data has begun to clarify: a) its level of non-additive genetic variation; b) the degree of directional dominance of its risk alleles; c) the distribution of effect sizes of its risk alleles; and d) its allelic spectrum. These phenomena are important in their own rights, but also help shed light on the likely evolutionary forces that acted upon schizophrenia risk alleles over evolutionary time.

 

Dr. Matthew Keller graduated from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 2004 with a PhD in Psychology and a MA in Statistics. He is currently an Associate Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Colorado, Boulder. His lab uses wholegenome data to gain insight into the genetic architecture of complex traits such as psychiatric disorders, and develops genetically informative methods to better understand the causes of human differences. His long-term goal is to bridge behavioral and evolutionary genetics to help elucidate the genetic underpinnings of psychiatric disorders.