🧬 Basics of Genetic Analysis

📅 Friday, July 25, 2025 | 🕗 8:00 am – 12:00 pm
📍 Westin Harbour Castle – Pier 2, Toronto, Canada
👥 In-person attendance only

🎯 Summary and Setup

This immersive ISTAART workshop provides an introduction to the fundamentals of genetic analysis within brain imaging genetics research. It combines theoretical concepts with hands-on practical sessions to give attendees a solid foundation.

💻 Connecting to Your Virtual Machine

Participants will access a cloud-hosted Linux-based VM with pre-installed tools. You should have received two emails from no-reply@accounts.eu-west-2.amazonappstream.com.

One for initial login/password setup
One for app launch (AppStream Desktop)

🚫 If you haven’t received the email, contact a facilitator.

🗓️ Agenda

Time	Session	Speaker(s)
8:00 am	Welcome / Intro	Tavia Evans
8:10 am	How to design your genetics experiment	Natalia Vilor-Tejedor
8:20 am	How to get data, QC, and imputation	Natalia Vilor-Tejedor
9:00 am	SNP analysis	Yuetiva Robles
9:40 am	Break
9:50 am	Genome Wide Association Studies (GWAS)	Yuetiva Robles
10:40 am	Polygenic Risk Score (PRS) calculation with PRSice	Emma Luckett
11:35 am	PostGWAS analysis: Understanding biological pathways	Krishna Rani Kalari, Karunya Kandimalla
11:55 am	End / Review	Tavia Evans, Natalia Vilor-Tejedor, Junhao Wen

🎓 Learning Objectives

Perform basic genetic analyses (SNPs, GWAS, PRS).
Understand and compare different genetic techniques.
Interpret outputs in the context of imaging genetics.

📋 Requirements

Bring your own laptop (tablets won’t work)
Review pre-recorded webinars (linked below)
Use the provided VM environment for all exercises

🔗 Webinars & Slides

Webinar Topic	Slides
Design your genetics experiment	Slides Intro
QC and Imputation	Slides QC Imputation, Pipeline QC, Pipeline Imputation
Single SNP association analysis	Slides SNP association
Genome Wide Association Studies	Slides GWAS
Polygenic Risk Scores	Slides PRS
PostGWAS analysis	Slides postGWAS

👥 Organizing Committee

Tavia E Evans, PhD
Natalia Vilor-Tejedor, PhD
Junhao Wen, PhD
David M Cash, PhD
Tobey J. Betthauser, PhD

Speakers

Natalia Vilor-Tejedor, PhD
Yuetiva Robles, PhD
Emma Luckett, PhD
Karunya Kandimalla, PhD
Krishna Rani Kalari, PhD

Teaching Aids

Luigi Lorenzini, PhD
Blanca Rodriguez-Fernandez, MSc
Patricia Genius, MSc
Armand Gonzalez-Escalante, MSc

This workshop is supported by: Alzheimer’s Association, ISTAART Neuroimaging PIA - Working group Brain Imaging Genetics

Special thanks to ADNI datasets, and infrastructure support from UCL team.

Interested in learning more? Check out our recent book chapter: Vilor-Tejedor, N. et al. (2025). Genomics and Transcriptomics of Alzheimer Disease. In: Tarawneh, R. (eds) Biomarkers of Neurodegenerative Disorders. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-80849-4_13.