Fri. Oct 11, 2019 10:30 AM - 12:10 PM
Room 12 (503)
Organizer / Chair: Yasue HORIUCHI (Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences,Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Medical Science, Japan), Co-chair: Hiroshi YONEDA (Department of Neuropsychiatry, Division of Comprehensive Medicine, Osaka Medical College, Japan), Discussants: Akira SAWA (Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health, USA), Daisuke NISHIZAWA (Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Medical Science, Japan)
Schizophrenia is a highly inheritable disorder, human genetics and genomics is a natural and powerful tool to study this disorder. Large-scale genetics studies have identified hundreds of loci underlying schizophrenia and provided initial insights into their disease pathogenesis. However, most of these studies were restricted to samples of European ancestry, limiting both scientific knowledge and its application from most of the world’s population. To address this important gap in scientific knowledge while advancing global mental health equity, the Stanley Center has launched a global initiative to increase sample sizes for psychiatric research within diverse populations across the world.
Our efforts in mapping the genetic variants that drive risk in the population have taken a more global view, with the coordination and completion of the pan-Asian genome-wide association study of schizophrenia.
In our first study, Asians showed highly consistent effect sizes to those in Europeans, suggesting that the genetic basis of schizophrenia and by extension its biology is broadly shared across major world populations. Integrating the pan-Asian results with the European schizophrenia meta-analysis identifies almost 90 new schizophrenia genetic loci.
These initial investigations into the genetics of schizophrenia in Asia have demonstrated the value of a global perspective on genetic risk. To fully capture genetic risk for schizophrenia and other psychiatric diseases, we have launched the SC Global Collection Initiative, which aims to collect ~100,000 samples over the next four years. These efforts focus on diverse populations, including multiple collection efforts in Ethiopia, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda Mexico, China, Japan, Australia, and Finland.
In this symposium, we will discuss the current status of our project from China, USA and Japan.