Bogdan Pasaniuc

@bpasaniuc.bsky.social

Computational and statistical genetics. Excited about all things science. Professor of genetics at UPenn. Views my own. https://www.med.upenn.edu/bogdan-group/

The INCEPTION is organizing its Annual Symposium. This year is about GWAS & beyond! We're happy to have @bpasaniuc.bsky.social, @caina89.bsky.social, Iuliana Ionita-Laza , Sriram Sankararaman, and others, who will talk about tools for understanding the genetic determinants of complex diseases

INCEPTION Symposium 2025 - Research

INCEPTION symposium 2025 - Focus on GWAS: paving the way for the future of genetics.

research.pasteur.fr

Excited to share our latest manuscript, "Exposure accumulation drives age-dependent disease architectures and polygenic risk scores," led by Xilin Jiang: www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1... I am attempting an explainer thread for the first time here: (I am usually too exhausted to post one)

Exposure accumulation drives age-dependent disease architectures and polygenic risk scores

Our understanding of the dependence of the genetic and environmental architecture of common diseases on age is incomplete. Here, we use longitudinal data to quantify age-dependent genetic and environm...

medrxiv.org

It is depressing, but all too predictable, how swiftly we’ve gone from the Social Science Genetic Association Consortium offering reassurances about the uses of behavioural polygenic scores to one of their lead authors marketing embryo selection for IQ

Text from an FAQ in Okbay et al 20222: 
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41588-022-01016-z 
a similar same statement is made in an FAQ in 2025: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.05.14.653986v1.supplementary-material
Text reads:
"The results of SSGAC studies have sometimes been used by online platforms, including some companies, to predict individual outcomes. We recognize that returning individual genomic “results” can be a fun way to engage people in research and other projects and to feed or stoke their interest in genomics. But it is important that participants/users understand that these individual results are not meaningful predictions and should be regarded essentially as entertainment. Failure to make this point clear risks sowing confusion and undermining trust in genetics research"

📣 We are recruiting! Please share!! Are you a bioinformatician / computational scientist who wants to apply your skills to understanding regulatory biology and improving rare disease diagnosis and treatment? 🧠 💻 🧬 🩺 We have two roles available 👇 🧵 1/4

Image of an old building in Oxford with the heading 'postdoc opportunities' and the text 'computational approaches to improve rare disease diagnosis and treatment' and 'Big Data Institute, University of Oxford'

Super excited to see this out. What started as some math in a grant in 2020, to a student deciding to take this on in 2022, to published in 2025. These things can take time and patience is key!

Nature Genetics@natgenet.nature.com · last yr.

📢OUT TODAY @natgenet.nature.com 📰Improved multiancestry fine-mapping identifies cis-regulatory variants underlying molecular traits and disease risk. By @zeyunlu.bsky.social, @nmancuso.bsky.social and colleagues. ⬇️ www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Our new AJHG paper is online. We develop a new TWAS tool that uses local-ancestry information to improve power of gene mapping in admixed samples. Lead author Taylor Head (now at MD Anderson) did a phenomenal job spearheading this work!

The American Journal of Human Genetics@ajhgnews.bsky.social · last yr.

🚨New method! 📄CADET: Enhanced transcriptome-wide association analyses in admixed samples using eQTL summary data 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 @epsteinstatgen.bsky.social @yjingj.bsky.social & co

I wrote about how we must stand and fight against the threat of eugenics. Fueled by white nationalism and scientific racism, these beliefs are factually wrong and ethically abhorrent. This fight includes supporting efforts to diversify our workforce & science. To stop now would be a deep betrayal.

Eugenics is on the rise again: human geneticists must take a stand

Scientists must push back against the threat of rising white nationalism and the dangerous and pseudoscientific ideas of eugenics.

nature.com

🚨 New paper 🚨 Do known genetic factors for obesity and type 2 diabetes affect weight loss from GLP1-RA (Ozempic) or bariatric surgery? 🔍 10,960 people, 9 biobanks, 6 countries 🧬 Minimal genetic impact on GLP1-RA response 📉 Modest effect after surgery www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Association between plausible genetic factors and weight loss from GLP1-RA and bariatric surgery - Nature Medicine

The authors found, after analyzing 10,960 individuals from 9 multiancestry biobanks across 6 countries, that genetic factors previously associated with BMI have limited impact on GLP-1 receptor agonis...

nature.com

Excited to see this published: rdcu.be/egHer Common- and rare-variant genetic analyses of heart failure in >2 million individuals 🔘 Dozens of new common variant loci 🔘 Confirmation of rare damaging variation in "definitive" cardiomyopathy genes 🔘 A PRS modifies penetrance of TTNtv

Common-variant and rare-variant genetic architecture of heart failure across the allele-frequency spectrum

Nature Genetics - Common-variant and rare-variant association analyses combining datasets from multiple populations yield insights into the genetic architecture of all-cause heart failure across...

rdcu.be