Overview
Some people's brains and hearts age faster than others. My research investigates the genetic factors associated with accelerated brain and cardiovascular aging, using large-scale genetic and imaging data from the UK Biobank.
Research focus
- Brain aging: built a machine learning model that estimates brain age from brain imaging measurements, and studied the gap between predicted and actual age
- Genome-wide association studies (GWAS): searched across the genome for genetic variants associated with accelerated aging
- Cardiovascular aging: extended the analysis to measures of arterial health, looking at whether brain and heart aging share genetic drivers
- Phenome-wide association studies (PheWAS): examined which other traits and conditions the associated variants are linked to
Sharing the work
I presented my results and model to Regeneron scientists, and to the other mentees and mentors in the program.
Skills and tools
- Statistical genetics with Regenie
- Working with large-scale genomic and imaging data
- Machine learning and data analysis in Python and R