The National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) awarded a $390,000 Project Grant (CFDA 93.859 - Biomedical Research and Research Training) to The Regents of the University of Colorado, doing business as the University of Colorado-Denver. The grant, awarded on September 10, 2024, supports the development of new methods and expansion of resources to improve the derivation and utilization of environmental phenotypes for human disease research. Key objectives include:
Improving the curation and optimization of phenotype pre-processing decisions using genetic heritability as a metric for phenotype precision.
Using genetic correlation as a proxy for phenotypic correlation to evaluate trait similarity and harmonize phenotypes across diverse study populations.
Extending genetic causal inference methods to better account for challenges like excess cross-trait correlation and genetic instrument mis-specification when identifying environmental risk factors for human diseases.
The research will leverage large-scale biobank datasets like UK Biobank and All of Us to develop and optimize these methodological approaches, making the results publicly available. The University of Colorado-Denver will also link clinical trial data with its Colorado Biobank resource to investigate genetic risk and intervention response.