Very nice article and demonstration. I'd like to see the addition of "chunk tests" that don't try to separate hard-to-separate predictors. @rpsychologist.com

Ben Ambridge@ambridge.bsky.social · last mo.

“The “strongest risk factor” is not the form most related to harm. It is the form least redundant with whatever else is in the model.”

Meet PEGASUS 🧬 A new community standard for reporting predicted effector genes. Making post-GWAS predictions more FAIR, comparable, and reusable across studies. Read the bioRxiv preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... #GWAS #Genomics #OpenScience

Morning. I'm in the Public Science plenary at #BGA2026 @evangiangrande.bsky.social is chairing and introducing the session. First up is Camille Williams and Robbee Wedow discussing the results of the recent public science BGA/ISPG/IBANGS survey

Day 2 at #BGA2026. Had to catch up on work, so late into the presidential symposium, only caught the end of Deniz Fraemke's talk on differential roles of educational attainment PRS across West/East Germany post unification. But you can read about the work here: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

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Last set of talks for the day at #BGA2026 (I was variously busy with bits for the previous two sessions). I'm starting with Emma Pruin, talking about family history indicators and polygenic scores for depression risk

Finally, Jeremy Lawrence will discuss Anthropometrically Independent Genetic Architecture of Cardiac Size and Function: Evidence from GWAS-by-Subtraction via Genomic SEM #BGA2026

Next is Anaïs Thijssen, who will follow up Wouter Peyrot's plenary by discussing GDIS in more depth. Psych disorders like depression are heterogeneous. Would be value to separate subtype analysis, could identify meaningful and actionable targets for treatment.

Next up in this symposium is Jana Hirzinger talking about Disentangling Direct and Mediated Genetic Effects on BMI Using Local Mediation Analysis. #BGA2026

Back at #BGA2026, in the symposium "Untangling the Web", examining the genetic relationship between psychiatric disorders. Sophie Breunig introducing the symposium and talking first about Prioritizing Modifiable Risk Factors for Psychiatric Disorders via Genomic Structural Equation Modeling

Standard disclaimer: conference bleets are eye-witness accounts and should be treated as such, with all the Loftus effects and reliability concerns that involves: www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-t... I don't bleet Q&As.

I'm at #BGA2026 #BGA26(?) this week. Out of practice with this skeeting thing, so we'll see how we go...! Introductory remarks from the local hosts here in sunny Amsterdam, to be followed by a plenary from the excellent Wouter Peyrot @behaviorgenetic.bsky.social

📢 New publication in @nathumbehav.nature.com from the PGC Anxiety Working Group: the largest GWAS of generalised anxiety symptoms to date, analysing ~700k across 14 cohorts. We found 74 genome-wide significant loci, 39 novel for anxiety.

This is so important, and the initial results here are very promising to see. 1/5 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Care scheme could prevent thousands of miscarriages a year

Current rules state that three unsuccessful pregnancies are needed to trigger NHS support - but a pilot project could bring about change.

bbc.co.uk

You're invited to register for and send in your submissions to #WCPG26! The International Society of Psychiatric Genetics' annual congress will be held in Glasgow, Scotland from 29 September - 3 October. The theme - Understanding Today, Translating Tomorrow - asks us to look forward. Join us.

Out earlier this week in @natgenet.nature.com: GWAS of major anxiety disorders in 122,341 European-ancestry cases identifying 58 loci (www.nature.com/articles/s41...) Awesome work, and great news for the anx genetics community — each @pgcgenetics.bsky.social paper seeds 100s more papers!

Genome-wide association study of major anxiety disorders in 122,341 European-ancestry cases identifies 58 loci and highlights GABAergic signaling - Nature Genetics

Genome-wide association meta-analysis identifies 58 independent risk loci for major anxiety disorders among individuals of European ancestry and implicates GABAergic signaling as a potential mechanism...

nature.com

www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧪. Impressive GWAS meta-analysis from the Anxiety Disorders Working Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium

Genome-wide association study of major anxiety disorders in 122,341 European-ancestry cases identifies 58 loci and highlights GABAergic signaling - Nature Genetics

Genome-wide association meta-analysis identifies 58 independent risk loci for major anxiety disorders among individuals of European ancestry and implicates GABAergic signaling as a potential mechanism...

nature.com

Interested in how mental health develops? If your background is in psychology, biosciences, or a related field, our MSc in Developmental Psychology & Psychopathology at @kingsioppn.bsky.social could be your next step: www.kcl.ac.uk/study/postgr... Join us in September – reach out to learn more!

Developmental Psychology & Psychopathology | King's College London

This course will develop your knowledge about genetic and environmental causes of developmental psychopathology across the lifespan.

kcl.ac.uk

Are you seeking a PhD in genomics or the application of AI to healthcare and therapeutics? Check out KCL's new PhD programme in Genome Data Science for Therapeutic Target Discovery! Apply by Saturday 28th February 2026, 23:59 GMT Details and projects: www.kcl.ac.uk/research/tar...

Finally, Jennifer Asimit will discuss leveraging phenotypic similarity and ancestry diversity in cardiometabolic genetics. Multi trait and multi ancestry methods for fine-mapping are emerging but challenging to implement

Final session - Gareth Hawkes talks about using WGS to examine the convergence of rare and common traits. Preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Whole-genome sequencing analysis of anthropometric traits in 672,976 individuals reveals convergence between rare and common genetic associations

Genetic association studies have mostly focussed on common variants from genotyping arrays or rare protein-coding variants from exome sequencing. Here, we used whole-genome sequence (WGS) data in 672,...

biorxiv.org

There are now flash talks... I will try to keep up. First is Hannah Li talking about atherosclerosis. WES of carotid-intima media thickness min/mean/max. 47k participants. Single variant + gene based rare variant testing. Functional admission and fine-mapping. Compared with previous GWAS.

Next is Oyesola Ojewunmi discussing foetal haemoglobin (HbF) persistence in sickle cell disease (SCD). SCD is a disease of haemoglobin, with HbA replaced by HbS, causing sickling of the haemoglobin, deforming the blood cell and causing occlusions in vessels and downstream stroke and other sequelae

📢 Calling UK mental health professionals working with neurodivergent young adults 📢 Please take part in our research on depression in neurodivergent young adults! It involves 1 individual interview and 2 focus groups (all online, £25/hour). Sign-up link: shorturl.at/r3HlO Reposts appreciated 🙏

Back after TOO MUCH COFFEEEE Onto ECR talks. First up is Eyad Elbahtety who will talk about Rare Variants in GWAS. Rare variants are neglected in GWAS because they are hard to measure with sufficient precision given typical sample sizes

Now Geli Ronald will talk about a genome wide association study of age at onset walking. Why study this age? Critical period for environment, rapid onset of developmental milestones and brain changes. Arguably under appreciated in common variant genetics.

Nice short preprint proposing a new method to distinguish second degree relatives: half siblings vs niece/nephew avuncular pairs. Both relationships have genomic kinship of 1/4, but they can be distinguished by multiple signals: 🧵 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Next is our own Vangelis Vassos talking about the implementation of polygenic scores in psychiatry, and whether we are ready yet

I'm in the London Genetics Network annual meeting. First up is Sanjay Sisodiya, who is talking about genetic complexity in a monogenic epilepsy

After 5 years of data collection, our WARN-D machine learning competition to forecast depression onset is now LIVE! We hope many of you will participate—we have incredibly rich data. If you share a single thing of my lab this year, please make it this competition. eiko-fried.com/warn-d-machi...

WARN-D machine learning competition is live » Eiko Fried

If you share one single thing of our team in 2026—on social media or per email with your colleagues—please let it be this machine learning competition. It was half a decade of work to get here, especi...

eiko-fried.com

🚨NEW PREPRINT ALERT!🚨 Jacob Knyspel investigated the moderating impact of exposure to different traumas on genetic risk for PTSD, using data from @ukbiobank.bsky.social, @gladstudy.bsky.social, @edgiuk.bsky.social and @nihrbioresource.bsky.social 1/3 www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-8...