Much of my previous research has focused on the initial linkage analyses of both human and animal alcoholism-related traits. While these studies have provided initial linkage results that are quite exciting and suggest the presence of genes underlying these traits, the power of these data to identify and confirm additional loci is poorly understood. In this K02 application I propose substantial career development which will allow me to bridge the gap between the genetic analyses of human and animal data. In order to achieve this goal, I will pursue intensive career development with two researchers, John Blangero, Ph.D. at the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research and Zhao-Beng Zeng, at North Carolina State University, both of whom have provided significant methodological development in the field of quantitative linkage analysis.
The specific aims of this application propose to utilize some of the most recently developed analytic methods to increase the power of locus detection in genetic studies of human alcoholism and alcohol seeking behaviors in the rat. To complement these studies, I propose simulation studies to evaluate the power of our analytic methods to detect genes of small to moderate effect and genes acting on the phenotype through gene-gene and gene-environment interactions. These studies will result in more sophisticated genetic analyses of alcoholism related data, as well as the development of optimum sampling designs for more efficient gene identification.
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