The 2018 Conference of the Program in Quantitative Genomics (PQG), entitled "Biobanks: Study Design and Data Analysis" will take place at the Joseph B. Martin Conference Center at the Harvard Medical School from November 1-2, 2018. This is the first of three years of the Program in Quantitative Genomics (PQG) Conference series to be supported by this award. This long-standing conference series, open to the whole research community, focuses on timely interdisciplinary discussions on emerging statistical and computational challenges in genetic and genomic science. The focus of each conference changes to reflect the evolution of scientific frontiers. Key to the success of the series is its interdisciplinary nature, bringing quantitative and subject-matter scientists together to discuss statistical and quantitative issues that arise in cutting-edge genetic and genomic research in human disease. The impetus for the 2018 conference theme comes from the proliferation of large-scale biobanks worldwide, composed of massive genetic and genomic data, epidemiological data, Electronic Medical Records, wearable devices and imaging data. The use of biobanks is becoming an essential and potentially revolutionizing approach to biomedical research, with the capacity to improve the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of a wide range of illnesses, and to advance personalized health. This conference aims at discussing key statistical and quantitative challenges in biobank studies, including biobank design to meet a wide array of needs, strategies for improving phenotyping accuracy, data harmonization across biobanks, and novel statistical and data science methods for analysis of biobank data. The conference is open to the whole research community and particularly encourages participation of junior faculty and researchers, postdoctoral fellows, students, women and members of underrepresented groups. The participants will discuss and critique existing quantitative methods, discuss in-depth emerging statistical and quantitative issues, and identify priorities for future research in the design and analysis of biobank data. The research presented will be broadly disseminated in publications in scientific journals and websites.
For the 2018 PQG conference we have assembled an interdisciplinary team of speakers experienced in biobank development and study design, including statisticians, medical informaticians, geneticists, epidemiologists, and clinical scientists. Three emerging topics of substantial current interest include the design of population Biobanks; phenotyping and harmonization across biobanks; and biobank data analysis. The conference discussion will revolve around 1) examples of different types of biobanks including different examples of recruitment strategies, selection of genotype / technologies, genotype resources and future directions, design strategies: cross-section, longitudinal, representative probability sampling, and increasing diversity and expanding to the Americas, Africa and Asia; 2) issues of phenotyping and harmonization across biobanks including new methods for improving phenotyping, harmonization within and across biobanks, enriching phenotyping using registry data (time to event), combining different biobank/registry data across the world, bias and missing data, misclassification in electronic health records (EHR) and other design heterogeneity issues in EHR databases; and finally 3) issues related to data analysis methods, including how to make analysis computationally scalable, analysis of related samples and admixture samples, multiple phenotypes and PheWAS analysis, missing data, misclassification of phenotypes, handling small number of cases for some diseases, risk prediction, selection of appropriate controls, integrative analysis across biobanks, and integrative analysis of different data types (genotype and phenotype, or transcriptomic and metabolomic data) or replicating phenotypes across biobanks. For more information, see www.hsph.harvard.edu/2018-pqg-conference/
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
