Mendelian Randomization: A Practical Guide to Study Design and Implementation
Master Mendelian randomization in two days: Engage in seminars and hands-on sessions to learn concepts, techniques, and data analysis methods for impactful studies.
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Course Description
The Mendelian Randomization Boot Camp is a two-day intensive combination of seminars and hands-on analytical sessions to provide an overview of the concepts, techniques, packages, data sources, and data analysis methods needed to conduct Mendelian randomization studies.
- Learn the foundational concepts and principles behind Mendelian randomization studies.
- Discover various options and techniques for implementing Mendelian randomization analyses effectively.
- Gain proficiency in identifying and utilizing suitable publicly available data sources for Mendelian randomization studies.
- Engage in hands-on sessions to analyze real data, covering data interpretation, handling, assumption checking, sensitivity analysis, and study design considerations.
To contact support for this course, please email [email protected].
Course Prerequisites
- Each participant is required have a working laptop or tablet with video and audio capabilities.
- The Boot Camp will use data sets in R/RStudio using the Posit Cloud (formerly RStudio Cloud) platform, therefore it is required that each participant has previous experience using R.
- Each participant must have a free, basic Posit Cloud (formerly RStudio Cloud) account prior to the first day of the boot camp.
What You Will Learn
This two-day intensive boot camp integrates motivation for Mendelian randomization studies, statistical concepts, genetic considerations, and practical examples to design, implement and interpret a Mendelian randomization analysis. Led by a scientist with several award winning papers on Mendelian randomization combined with extensive expertise in epidemiology, the workshop will integrate seminar lectures with hands-on computer sessions to put concepts into practice. Emphasis will be given to leveraging existing publicly available resources (data, tools and packages) as well as indicating the scope for new studies. The afternoon lab sessions will provide an opportunity to work hands-on with real data. Participants will learn and practice all the steps required for a successful Mendelian randomization analysis using publicly available data, including identifying suitable data sources, data extraction, data alignment, assumption checking and sensitivity analysis.
By the end of this Mendelian randomization training, participants will be familiar with the following topics:
- Principles of Mendelian randomization
- Implementation options
- Suitable publicly available data sources
- Data interpretation and handling
- Data analysis
- Sensitivity analysis
- Study design advantages and pitfalls
- Emerging Mendelian randomization techniques
- Use of MR-Base
Instructors
Mary Schooling embarked on a career in Public Health in 2002 as a part-time teaching assistant at The University of Hong Kong after obtaining a PhD in Epidemiology from University College London (UK) following a career in Technology and Operations Research starting at IBM.
Mary Schooling joined CUNY in 2010 and has been a Professor at CUNY School of Public Health since 2013. Currently, she is Chair of the Department of Environmental Occupation, Geospatial Health Sciences.Mary Schooling is an Editorial Board member of the journal PLoS ONE, an Associate Editor of the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health (BMJ Publishing Group) and an Advisory Editor for Social Science and Medicine. Her research program assessing health effects of lifespan trading off against growth and reproduction crosses traditional boundaries of individual disciplines or fields of enquiry and has yielded several translatable mechanistic insights. 1. A comprehensive explanation for the changing patterns of disease with the epidemiological transition including the emergence of higher rates of ischemic cardiovascular disease in men than women and the differing patterns of disease by migration status, specifically the higher risk of diabetes, hemorrhagic stroke and infection related cancers but lower risk of hormone related cancers and ischemic cardiovascular disease often seen in migrants from less to more economically developed settings. 2. Recognition by the United States Food and Drug Administration (2014/5) and Health Canada (2014) that androgens are a new cardiovascular disease risk factor, with impact on sales and practice3. Identification of existing classes of drugs, such as neurokinin 3 receptor antagonists and the traditional Chinese medicine puerarin, likely acting on the reproductive axis, which could be used more generally to combat cardiovascular disease.