Farrall group, CardioVascular Medicine

Research Overview

Cardiovascular genetics

I work with clinical groups to design and analyse family and population-based studies to investigate the genetic component of complex cardiovascular diseases:

essential hypertension - MRC BRIGHT [www.brightstudy.ac.uk], WTCCC+ [www.wtccc.org.uk] and GLOBAL BPGEN
coronary artery disease - PROCARDIS [www.procardis.org]
pre-eclampsia – GOPEC [www.gopec.org]
stroke – WTCCC2 and ISGC [www.strokegenetics.org]
congenital heart disease – CHANGE

These projects involve genome-wide as well as large-scale candidate gene genotyping experiments. I am also interested in human quantitative genetic analysis both for cardiovascular intermediate phenotypes and risk factors (e.g. angiotensin-1 converting enzyme and lipoprotein(a)) and other tractable QTL problems (e.g. fetal hemoglobin/hemoglobinopathy modifier genetics)

Other complex genetic diseases

I lead the statistical genetic analysis of a genome-wide association study of asthma (child, adult and industrial asthma) and circulating IgE levels (a quantitative phenotype associated with atopic asthma) through the GABRIEL project.

I have also recently participated in an EU consortium studying the genetic basis of clinical sequaelae of diabetes (EURAGEDIC) and assist with a collaborative project funded by the UK MRC and National Kidney Research Fund (NKRF) to create a DNA bank to study genetic susceptibility to glomerulonephritis.

Recent Publications (selected)

Broadbent H M, Peden J F, Lorkowski S, Goel A, Ongen H, Green F, Clarke R, Collins R, Franzosi M G, Tognoni G, Seedorf U, Rust S, Eriksson P, Hamsten A, Farrall M, and Watkins H 2007, 'Susceptibility to coronary artery disease and diabetes is encoded by distinct, tightly linked, SNPs in the ANRIL locus on chromosome 9p', Hum Mol Genet. vol 17, no. 6, pp 806-814. View on Pubmed
Wallace C, Newhouse SJ, Braund P, Zhang F, Tobin M, Falchi M, Ahmadi K, Dobson RJ, Marçano AC, Hajat C, Burton P, Deloukas P, Brown M, Connell JM, Dominiczak A, Lathrop GM, Webster J, Farrall M, Spector T, Samani NJ, Caulfield MJ, Munroe PB 2008, 'Genome-wide association study identifies genes for biomarkers of cardiovascular disease: serum urate and dyslipidemia', Am J Hum Genet. vol 82, no. 1, pp 139-149. View on Pubmed
Dixon AL, Liang L, Moffatt MF, Chen W, Heath S, Wong KC, Taylor J, Burnett E, Gut I, Farrall M, Lathrop GM, Abecasis GR, Cookson WO 2007, 'A genome-wide association study of global gene expression', Nat Genet. vol 39, no. 10, pp 1202-1207. View on Pubmed
Menzel S, Garner C, Gut I, Matsuda F, Yamaguchi M, Heath S, Foglio M, Zelenika D, Boland A, Rooks H, Best S, Spector TD, Farrall M, Lathrop M, Thein SL 2007, 'A QTL influencing F cell production maps to a gene encoding a zinc-finger protein on chromosome 2p15', Nat Genet. vol 39, no. 10, pp 1197-9. View on Pubmed
Moffatt MF, Kabesch M, Liang L, Dixon AL, Strachan D, Heath S, Depner M, von Berg A, Bufe A, Rietschel E, Heinzmann A, Simma B, Frischer T, Willis-Owen SA, Wong KC, Illig T, Vogelberg C, Weiland SK, von Mutius E, Abecasis GR, Farrall M, Gut IG, Lathrop GM, Cookson WO 2007, 'Genetic variants regulating ORMDL3 expression contribute to the risk of childhood asthma', Nature. 448(7152):470-3. View on Pubmed
Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium 2007, ' Genome-wide association study of 14,000 cases of seven common diseases and 3,000 shared controls', Nature. 447(7145):661-78. View on Pubmed

Funding Sources

HEFCE (MF)
EU FP6 (PROCARDIS and GABRIEL)
BHF (PROCARDIS and BRIGHT)
Wellcome Trust (WTCCC+ and WTCCC2)

Research Area

Cardiovascular disease

Keywords

Cardiovascular genetics, Coronary artery disease, hypertension, Pre-eclampsia, Stroke, Congenital heart disease, Quantitative genetic variation, QTL mapping