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Approved Research

Explorative analyses to investigate the genetic structure underlying complex traits

Principal Investigator: Dr Jooyeon Lee
Approved Research ID: 87860
Approval date: August 9th 2022

Lay summary

We aim to identify novel biological mechanisms of complex traits and discover new drug targets of those diseases. With the diverse methods of genetic analyses, we will identify genetic causes of complex traits and develop a more accurate risk prediction model. Finally, we aim to prioritize those at higher risk of developing diseases and provide evidence for management guidelines. Another aim of this study is to perform virtual clinical trials by using genomic data and drug information. This analysis would help identify novel therapeutic targets for complex diseases and evaluate the potential effects of drugs on off-label diseases.

For identification of causal genetic variants and developing a more accurate risk prediction model, different types of data (genome, disease-related risk factors, and imaging data) will be used. And for the test of drug effects on health outcomes, genetic data related to target proteins of drugs will be analysed. Also, the possible side effects of these newly identified drugs will be scanned using genomic data of all traits. As this project aims to examine diverse factors associated with complex traits comprehensively, we prefer access to the full dataset of the whole cohort, if possible. The estimated duration of our project is 3 years.

Findings from this project will improve our understanding of disease mechanisms, identify the higher-risk population of disease development which can be applied to establish disease prevention and treatment strategies, and find new candidate drugs for complex diseases.