[901] Complex Genetic Traits

My laboratory focuses on complex cardiovascular genetic traits, using molecular biology and computational methods.
Blood pressure and hypertension are among the key interests of this laboratory. HTN is quantitavely the major cardiovascular risk factor. Heritability estimates indicate that 30-60% of this risk is genetic. But the pathogenesis of essential HTN is unclear. We work with several large European and US-cohorts to better understand the genetics of essential HTN.

This laboratory is currently collaborating in a consortial effort of investigating blood pressure genetics by genomewide association (CHARGE and ICBP consortia) and we have conducted an analysis in which ~70,000 participants were genotyped for hundreds of thousands of SNPs. The preliminary results indicate that the genetic contribution to hypertension is the effect of multiple variants with small effect sizes (within the frequency range of >5%).

Large sample sizes and specialized analytical methods are required to demonstrate effects and evaluate their importance. Another main interest of this group are large scale sequencing efforts for the discovery of genetic determinants of cardiovascular disease at the lower end of the allele spectrum. Using the knowledge gained by the '1000 Genome Project' this laboratory is involved in analyzing datasets with our collaboration partners.
This laboratory also serves as DNA repository for several projects, most notably the 'RAHYCO' project, the 'Seychelles' project and the 'SkiPOGH' project in collaboration with Dr. A. Pechère HUG and Prof. M. Bochud, CHUV.

Group publications