2021 WCPG Education Day
This is a special day for members and guests of ISPG to focus on a broad introduction to psychiatric genetics. This day is specially organized to provide LIVE sessions across three different time zones. This Primer day is a great opportunity for the ISPG global community to learn or refresh knowledge about psychiatric genetics.
NOTE: This program is included in the 2021 WCPG registration fees.
A special registration fee is available for Education Day only.
Please visit the Registration Page for more details.
9:00 AM – 10:00 AM ET US
followed by a 10:15 AM – 10:45 AM Q&A with Danielle Posthuma
Introduction to GWAS, Danielle Posthuma
Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) test hundreds of thousands of genetic variants across many genomes to find those statistically associated with a specific trait or disease. This methodology has generated a myriad of robust associations for a range of traits and diseases and the number of associated variants is expected to grow steadily as GWAS sample sizes increase. GWAS results have a range of applications, such as gaining insight into a phenotype’s underlying biology, estimating its heritability, calculating genetic correlations, making clinical risk predictions, informing drug development programs and inferring potential causal relationships between risk factors and health outcomes. In this educational session, we provide an introduction to GWAS, explaining their statistical basis and how they are conducted, describe state-of-the art approaches and discuss limitations and challenges, concluding with an overview of the current and future applications for GWAS results.

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) test hundreds of thousands of genetic variants across many genomes to find those statistically associated with a specific trait or disease. This methodology has generated a myriad of robust associations for a range of traits and diseases and the number of associated variants is expected to grow steadily as GWAS sample sizes increase. GWAS results have a range of applications, such as gaining insight into a phenotype’s underlying biology, estimating its heritability, calculating genetic correlations, making clinical risk predictions, informing drug development programs and inferring potential causal relationships between risk factors and health outcomes. In this educational session, we provide an introduction to GWAS, explaining their statistical basis and how they are conducted, describe state-of-the art approaches and discuss limitations and challenges, concluding with an overview of the current and future applications for GWAS results.
1:30 PM – 2:30 PM ET US
followed by a 2:45 PM – 3:15 PM Q&A with Patrick Sullivan
PGC: Aims & Intentions, Patrick Sullivan

5:00 PM – 6:00 PM ET US
followed by a 6:15 PM – 6:45 PM Q&A with Naomi Wray
Basic Concepts in Psychiatric Genetics, Naomi Wray
This session will provide intuitive understanding of the links between risk in relatives and heritability, between heritability and SNP-based heritability, and between genetic risk and polygenic risk scores. I plan to also cover the relationship between cross-disorder risks and genetic correlations. Useful prior reading would be Baselmans et al (2020) “Risk in Relatives, Heritability, SNP-Based Heritability, and Genetic Correlations in Psychiatric Disorders: A Review” https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2020.05.034
This session will provide intuitive understanding of the links between risk in relatives and heritability, between heritability and SNP-based heritability, and between genetic risk and polygenic risk scores. I plan to also cover the relationship between cross-disorder risks and genetic correlations. Useful prior reading would be Baselmans et al (2020) “Risk in Relatives, Heritability, SNP-Based Heritability, and Genetic Correlations in Psychiatric Disorders: A Review” https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2020.05.034
For full schedule of 2021 WCPG, CLICK HERE