Investigating the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) Using Statistical Genetics Methods

The Center for Genetic Epidemiology is excited to host an in-person and virtual seminar with Dr. David Evans on March 12. Dr Evans is an NHMRC Leadership Fellow and Professor of Statistical Genetics at the University of Queensland Institute for Molecular Bioscience. He is a winner of the NHMRC Marshall and Warren Award. He completed his PhD in Statistical Genetics at the University of Queensland in 2003, before undertaking a four-year post-doctoral fellowship at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford where he worked as part of the The International HapMap Consortium and co-led the analysis of four diseases within the first Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium. In 2007 he moved to take up a Senior Lecturer position at the University of Bristol where he led much of the genome-wide association studies work in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). In 2013 he returned to take up a chair at the University of Queensland whilst continuing to lead an MRC Program in statistical genetics at the University of Bristol. His research interests include the genetic mapping of complex traits and diseases (including birthweight and other perinatal traits, osteoporosis, ankylosing spondylitis, sepsis, laterality) and the development of statistical methodologies in genetic epidemiology including approaches for gene mapping, individual risk prediction, causal modeling and dissecting the genetic architecture of complex traits. He has a particular interest in Mendelian randomization and has used it and other causal methods to investigate the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD)- the idea that adverse intrauterine exposures lead to increased risk of disease in later life. He is Academic Co-director at the NIH funded International Workshop on Statistical Genetics Methods and is faculty on the European Program in Educational Epidemiology. He is Associate Editor at the International Journal of Epidemiology and Behavior Genetics journals.