Dalla Lana School of Public Health

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Join us for the next instalment of the STAGE International Speaker Seminar Series (ISSS) with

Genevieve Wojcik
Associate Professor
Department of Epidemiology
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Baltimore MD, USA

Free Hybrid (In person/Online) Event | Registration Required

Talk Title
Global Diversity, Local Contexts: An Epidemiological Lens to Modeling Ancestry and Environment for Genetic Risk

Abstract
While there is a growing body of literature demonstrating the potential utility of polygenic scores in both precision medicine and public health genetics, there remains a lack of representation across genetic diversity that in turn limits their downstream benefits. This paucity of research in diverse groups permeates and compounds at each stages of genetic research from recruitment to discovery to translation to implementation. In this talk, I will highlight necessary considerations in addressing this gap of knowledge, specifically drawing upon examples examining genetic risk within Hispanic/Latino participants of the Population Architecture using Genomics and Epidemiology (PAGE) Study. Heterogeneity in both genetics and environment underscores the need to carefully model these interconnected factors for better models of human health with the ultimate goal of health equity.

Speaker Profile
Dr. Genevieve Wojcik is a genetic epidemiologist and Assistant Professor of Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She holds a BA in Biology from Cornell University, an MHS in Human Genetics/Genetic Epidemiology and a PhD in Epidemiology from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and conducted her postdoctoral training at Stanford University. Her research program focuses on understanding the role of ancestry and environment in genetic risk and developing solutions to address health inequities for diverse and admixed groups. Dr. Wojcik holds leadership roles in several NIH-funded genetics consortia, including the Population Architecture using Genomics and Epidemiology (PAGE) Study, the Clinical Genome Resource (ClinGen), and the Polygenic Risk Methods in Diverse Populations (PRIMED) Consortium. Within PAGE, she was a lead analyst on the development of Illumina’s Infinium Multi-Ethnic Global line of genotyping arrays, as well as led the 2019 Nature publication demonstrating the value of diverse populations in large-scale genetic epidemiology. Within ClinGen, she led the development of the Polygenic Risk Score Reporting Standards (PRS-RS), published in 2021. Dr. Wojcik’s research also touches upon the concepts of race, ethnicity, and genetic ancestry in genetic research, as she was a contributing member of the 2023 NASEM report on The Use of Race, Ethnicity, and Ancestry as Population Descriptors in Genomics Research and is a current member of their committee on The Use of Race and Ethnicity in Biomedical Research.