Approved research

Genetic studies of type 2 diabetes, related metabolic traits, and their complications

Lay summary

Our main ongoing research aim is to understand the genetic basis of type 2 diabetes, related metabolic traits, and their complications. We have previously identified dozens of loci associated with type 2 diabetes susceptibility and glycemic traits, providing insights into genetic architecture and novel biology. We aim to extend these studies using data from the UK Biobank. We also plan to use these data to extend ongoing efforts to develop methodologic approaches to analyze multiple phenotypes simultaneously. Our work would combine the UK biobank data with large ongoing efforts in the MAGIC, SIGMA, and T2D-GENES consortia to greatly advance our understanding of the genetic basis of type 2 diabetes, related metabolic traits, and their complications. Type 2 diabetes and metabolic disease are major public health issue globally, and their complications cause substantial burden to patients and the healthcare system. Improved understanding could yield better predictive biomarkers or guide future therapeutic development for diabetes and related metabolic disease. Our methodological work would inform genetic studies of many important polygenic diseases. We will perform genetic association analysis (similar to prior work we have helped lead for type 2 diabetes and glycemic traits) to investigate how genetic variants that impact type 2 diabetes or glycemic traits also impact other phenotypes. We will use statistical methods designed for analysis of multiple traits simultaneously, and test whether these new methods can identify likely causal variants and better classify variants and biological pathways by their effect on human traits. We would analyze the full cohort.