Dec. 9 BUSPH Public Health Forum: Personalized Genetic Medicine – Are We There Yet? The Alzheimer's Experience
On Wednesday, December 9, join Lindsay Farrer, PhD, chief of the Genetics Program at BU School of Medicine, as he presents the talk “Personalized Genetic Medicine…Are We There Yet? The Alzheimer’s Experience” at the BUSPH Public Health Forum. Farrer, whose research mainly focuses on Alzheimer’s disease, is also a professor of medicine, neurology, genetics and genomics at BUSM and professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at BUSPH.
Under Farrer’s leadership, the MIRAGE Project, a multi-center study of Alzheimer’s funded by the National Institute on Aging since 1991, has made several important contributions to the understanding of interactions between genetic and environmental factors for the disorder. In recent years, the MIRAGE cohort has been the focus of studies comparing variations in genes related to vascular functioning with disease risk and pre-clinical changes evident on MRI scans of the brain.
In 2007, Farrer co-directed an international study that demonstrated that the neuronal sortilin-related receptor SORL1 is genetically and functionally associated with Alzheimer’s disease, a finding that has been replicated by many laboratories worldwide. Currently, his lab is conducting genome wide association studies for Alzheimer’s using several diverse population samples.
Farrer and his colleagues in the Genetics Program are also working with other BUSM researchers to identifying genes for hypertension and blood pressure regulation disorders; genes influencing severity and expression of sickle cell anemia and β-thalassemia; and with the New England Centenarian Study on the genetic basis of exceptional longevity.
The BUSPH Public Health Forum is a regular series presented by the School of Public Health. It is free and open to the public.
- BUSPH Public Health Forum: “Personalized Genetic Medicine – Are We There Yet? The Alzheimer’s Experience”
- Speaker: Lindsay Farrer, chief of the Genetics Program at BUSM, professor of medicine, neurology, genetics and genomics at BUSM, and professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at BUSPH.
- Date: December 9, 2009
- Time: 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.
- Location: BUSM Instructional Building, Room L-112, 72 East Concord Street
- For more information, contact msalzman@bu.edu