The Daily Bulletin Archive

Please join the Biology Department and the Great Lakes Center for the seminar "Why Diversity Matters in Neuropsychiatric Genetics," presented by Jamal Williams, an assistant professor focusing on psychiatric genetics in the University at Buffalo's Department of Psychiatry, on Monday, April 17, at 3:00 p.m. in Bulger Communication Center 216. Dr. Williams is an alumnus of Buffalo State, where he obtained his M.A. in biology in 2017. He went on to complete his Ph.D. in neuroscience from UB's Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences in 2022 and his postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California at Los Angeles in 2023. Attendees are welcome to arrive at 2:30 p.m. to enjoy coffee and cookies before the seminar begins.

Abstract
As the advancement of computational tools and our ability to more precisely understand disease-specific variation continues to grow, we are still extremely hindered by ancestrally homogenous datasets. For example, studies have shown that when using disease variants from one ancestral population to infer risk in a different ancestral population, predictive power is reduced by at least five standard deviations. Unfortunately this is also true when examining polygenic risk in psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders. Dr. Williams will discuss the impact of lacking ancestral diversity of genetic studies and the compounding disparities that are bound to exist as the precision medicine revolution takes off.