Gregor Gorjanc
@gregorgorjanc.bsky.social
Managing and improving populations using data science, genetics and breeding: @HighlanderLab, @RoslinInstitute, & @TheDickVet.
https://www.ed.ac.uk/roslin/highlanderlab
https://www.ed.ac.uk/roslin/highlanderlab
Reposted by Gregor Gorjanc
@hakha.bsky.social and I wrote a Research Briefing (with a lay summary + "behind the scenes") of our paper on how genes are prioritized by GWAS and rare variant burden tests. 🧬🧪
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
How do genetic association studies rank genes?
Genome-wide association studies and rare-variant burden tests reveal complementary aspects of trait biology.
www.nature.com
November 19, 2025 at 6:43 PM
@hakha.bsky.social and I wrote a Research Briefing (with a lay summary + "behind the scenes") of our paper on how genes are prioritized by GWAS and rare variant burden tests. 🧬🧪
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Reposted by Gregor Gorjanc
Wonderful story from a young scientist about his experience with @official-smbe.bsky.social and competing in GHIST. I'm so glad to see the next generation thriving.
Jaison is an author on the GHIST paper, and the 2025 competition ends in 14 days. Now's your chance to dive in and join! ghist.bio
Jaison is an author on the GHIST paper, and the 2025 competition ends in 14 days. Now's your chance to dive in and join! ghist.bio
November 17, 2025 at 3:48 PM
Wonderful story from a young scientist about his experience with @official-smbe.bsky.social and competing in GHIST. I'm so glad to see the next generation thriving.
Jaison is an author on the GHIST paper, and the 2025 competition ends in 14 days. Now's your chance to dive in and join! ghist.bio
Jaison is an author on the GHIST paper, and the 2025 competition ends in 14 days. Now's your chance to dive in and join! ghist.bio
Reposted by Gregor Gorjanc
Haseman-Elston regression is bit of an irony for massive biobanks because it throws away the statistical precision that was gained by accounting for more samples. You might be able to analyze more data, but you don't get more information out of it.
November 10, 2025 at 11:01 PM
Haseman-Elston regression is bit of an irony for massive biobanks because it throws away the statistical precision that was gained by accounting for more samples. You might be able to analyze more data, but you don't get more information out of it.
Reposted by Gregor Gorjanc
I still give this advice routinely for students looking for career advice. Write and learn in public.
One thing I missed in this post is CONSISTENCY.
As with athletic pursuits, people overestimate what you can accomplish in a week and underestimate what you can do in a year. Writing is the same.
One thing I missed in this post is CONSISTENCY.
As with athletic pursuits, people overestimate what you can accomplish in a week and underestimate what you can do in a year. Writing is the same.
November 7, 2025 at 2:08 PM
I still give this advice routinely for students looking for career advice. Write and learn in public.
One thing I missed in this post is CONSISTENCY.
As with athletic pursuits, people overestimate what you can accomplish in a week and underestimate what you can do in a year. Writing is the same.
One thing I missed in this post is CONSISTENCY.
As with athletic pursuits, people overestimate what you can accomplish in a week and underestimate what you can do in a year. Writing is the same.
Reposted by Gregor Gorjanc
How do GWAS and rare variant burden tests rank gene signals?
In new work @nature.com with @hakha.bsky.social, @jkpritch.bsky.social, and our wonderful coauthors we find that the key factors are what we call Specificity, Length, and Luck!
🧬🧪🧵
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
In new work @nature.com with @hakha.bsky.social, @jkpritch.bsky.social, and our wonderful coauthors we find that the key factors are what we call Specificity, Length, and Luck!
🧬🧪🧵
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Specificity, length and luck drive gene rankings in association studies - Nature
Genetic association tests prioritize candidate genes based on different criteria.
www.nature.com
November 7, 2025 at 12:05 AM
How do GWAS and rare variant burden tests rank gene signals?
In new work @nature.com with @hakha.bsky.social, @jkpritch.bsky.social, and our wonderful coauthors we find that the key factors are what we call Specificity, Length, and Luck!
🧬🧪🧵
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
In new work @nature.com with @hakha.bsky.social, @jkpritch.bsky.social, and our wonderful coauthors we find that the key factors are what we call Specificity, Length, and Luck!
🧬🧪🧵
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Gregor Gorjanc
This tells us that population structure itself, which does not contribute to "directional" allele frequency stratification, can't create fixed effects. What happens there is selection? well that I think is still an open question.
(8/8).
(8/8).
November 5, 2025 at 10:58 PM
This tells us that population structure itself, which does not contribute to "directional" allele frequency stratification, can't create fixed effects. What happens there is selection? well that I think is still an open question.
(8/8).
(8/8).
Reposted by Gregor Gorjanc
This makes PCs obsolete as a means to handle fixed genetic contributors. Of course, there are non-genetic contributors aligning with genetic factors so PCs might have role, but it has nothing to do with genetics.
(7/n)
(7/n)
November 5, 2025 at 10:56 PM
This makes PCs obsolete as a means to handle fixed genetic contributors. Of course, there are non-genetic contributors aligning with genetic factors so PCs might have role, but it has nothing to do with genetics.
(7/n)
(7/n)
Reposted by Gregor Gorjanc
I greatly appreciate Ochoa group's long-lasting effort to define the quantity first and trying to estimate it. They've been stressing that PCs are unnecessary in LMMs are in fact harmful in certain cases. I have some thoughts.
(1/n)
academic.oup.com/genetics/adv...
(1/n)
academic.oup.com/genetics/adv...
Kinship estimation bias carries over to heritability estimation bias using variance components
Abstract. Heritability is a fundamental parameter of diseases and other traits, quantifying the contribution of genetics to that trait. Kinship matrices ar
academic.oup.com
November 5, 2025 at 10:43 PM
I greatly appreciate Ochoa group's long-lasting effort to define the quantity first and trying to estimate it. They've been stressing that PCs are unnecessary in LMMs are in fact harmful in certain cases. I have some thoughts.
(1/n)
academic.oup.com/genetics/adv...
(1/n)
academic.oup.com/genetics/adv...
Reposted by Gregor Gorjanc
Every time one anti-vaxxer is quoted in the media, one million scientists and healthcare workers should also be quoted in support of vaccines.
False equivalence in the media is killing us.
False equivalence in the media is killing us.
November 5, 2025 at 3:39 PM
Every time one anti-vaxxer is quoted in the media, one million scientists and healthcare workers should also be quoted in support of vaccines.
False equivalence in the media is killing us.
False equivalence in the media is killing us.
Reposted by Gregor Gorjanc
I think what you are calling stochastic developmental variation is the outcome of unmeasured environmental perturbations and genetic-environmental interactions on a highly complex and possibly chaotic system, and definitely contributes to the observed non-genetic variance. :)
October 18, 2025 at 4:43 PM
I think what you are calling stochastic developmental variation is the outcome of unmeasured environmental perturbations and genetic-environmental interactions on a highly complex and possibly chaotic system, and definitely contributes to the observed non-genetic variance. :)
Reposted by Gregor Gorjanc
Is it possible to download the whole tree from the math genealogy project?
October 19, 2025 at 1:12 AM
Is it possible to download the whole tree from the math genealogy project?
Reposted by Gregor Gorjanc
Our work w/ two co-first authors Drew DeHaas and Ziqing Pan is now published. GRG allows large amounts of WGS polymorphism data to be analyzed in RAM via graph traversal & algebra operations & has some intrinsic connection w/ popgen data generating process & is different from ARG
December 5, 2024 at 5:09 PM
Our work w/ two co-first authors Drew DeHaas and Ziqing Pan is now published. GRG allows large amounts of WGS polymorphism data to be analyzed in RAM via graph traversal & algebra operations & has some intrinsic connection w/ popgen data generating process & is different from ARG
Reposted by Gregor Gorjanc
Our work (by Drew DeHaas) on an extremely simple yet efficient binary genotype format - designed to facilitate scalable bioinformatics tool development. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
IGD: A simple, efficient genotype data format
Motivation While there are a variety of file formats for storing reference-sequence-aligned genotype data, many are complex or inefficient. Programming language support for such formats is often limit...
www.biorxiv.org
February 12, 2025 at 1:03 AM
Our work (by Drew DeHaas) on an extremely simple yet efficient binary genotype format - designed to facilitate scalable bioinformatics tool development. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Reposted by Gregor Gorjanc
Very proud of this manuscript with two talented undergraduate students, Aditya Syam and Chris Adonizio. We are continuing to push towards more scalable statistical genetics with Genotype Representation Graphs, and this is the start. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Fast Phenotype Simulation for Genotype Representation Graphs
Motivation The Genotype Representation Graph (GRG) [[DeHaas et al., 2025][1]] is a graph representation of whole genome polymorphisms, designed to encode the variant hard-call information in phased wh...
www.biorxiv.org
August 25, 2025 at 2:26 PM
Very proud of this manuscript with two talented undergraduate students, Aditya Syam and Chris Adonizio. We are continuing to push towards more scalable statistical genetics with Genotype Representation Graphs, and this is the start. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Reposted by Gregor Gorjanc
Method works from simple and complex scenarios in jointly estimating epoch time, population size, migration rate (symmetric or asymmetric), growth rate, and admixture proportion. Software integrated with msprime, demes, tsinfer/tsdate, relate, and singer. github.com/aprilweilab/...
October 8, 2025 at 2:48 PM
Method works from simple and complex scenarios in jointly estimating epoch time, population size, migration rate (symmetric or asymmetric), growth rate, and admixture proportion. Software integrated with msprime, demes, tsinfer/tsdate, relate, and singer. github.com/aprilweilab/...
Reposted by Gregor Gorjanc
Excited to preprint our latest work (w/ Drew DeHaas, Zhibai Jia, Leo Speidel) on using ARGs for demographic inference. w/ applications using data from 1000 Genomes Project. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Inference of complex demographic history using composite likelihood based on whole-genome genealogies
Accurate parametric inference on complex demographic models is a continuing challenge in population genetics. Ancestral recombination graphs (ARGs) provide richer information than simple population ge...
www.biorxiv.org
October 8, 2025 at 2:48 PM
Excited to preprint our latest work (w/ Drew DeHaas, Zhibai Jia, Leo Speidel) on using ARGs for demographic inference. w/ applications using data from 1000 Genomes Project. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Reposted by Gregor Gorjanc
I am hiring! - looking for a Staff Scientist to co-run my research group with me. Staff Scientist is a senior professional scientist role at EMBL. Please forward to people you might know who could be interested! embl.wd103.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/EMBL/j...
Staff Scientist
About EMBL-EBI EMBL’s European Bioinformatics Institute is a data powerhouse, utilised on a global scale to advance scientific discovery through bioinformatics and solutions to some of the world’s mos...
embl.wd103.myworkdayjobs.com
October 10, 2025 at 7:30 AM
I am hiring! - looking for a Staff Scientist to co-run my research group with me. Staff Scientist is a senior professional scientist role at EMBL. Please forward to people you might know who could be interested! embl.wd103.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/EMBL/j...
Reposted by Gregor Gorjanc
I want to try something again at #ASHG25 this year: I'll block some time on Thursday and Friday afternoons to meet with trainees who would be interested to chat on any topic.
I did this last year and it was great to meet a whole bunch of new people, at all career stages!
I did this last year and it was great to meet a whole bunch of new people, at all career stages!
October 6, 2025 at 11:14 PM
I want to try something again at #ASHG25 this year: I'll block some time on Thursday and Friday afternoons to meet with trainees who would be interested to chat on any topic.
I did this last year and it was great to meet a whole bunch of new people, at all career stages!
I did this last year and it was great to meet a whole bunch of new people, at all career stages!
Reposted by Gregor Gorjanc
Our paper (Brieuc Lehmann is the first author) is now online in Genetics.
academic.oup.com/genetics/adv...
academic.oup.com/genetics/adv...
On ARGs, pedigrees, and genetic relatedness matrices
Abstract. Genetic relatedness is a central concept in genetics, underpinning studies of population and quantitative genetics in human, animal, and plant se
academic.oup.com
October 9, 2025 at 1:47 AM
Our paper (Brieuc Lehmann is the first author) is now online in Genetics.
academic.oup.com/genetics/adv...
academic.oup.com/genetics/adv...
Reposted by Gregor Gorjanc
Delighted that our paper about the distribution of genomic spans of clades/edges in genealogies (ARGs), and using this for detecting inversions and other SVs (and other phenomena that cause local disruption of recombination) is out in MBE academic.oup.com/mbe/article/... (1/n)
The Length of Haplotype Blocks and Signals of Structural Variation in Reconstructed Genealogies
Abstract. Recent breakthroughs have enabled the accurate inference of large-scale genealogies. Through modelling the impact of recombination on the correla
academic.oup.com
October 3, 2025 at 9:54 AM
Delighted that our paper about the distribution of genomic spans of clades/edges in genealogies (ARGs), and using this for detecting inversions and other SVs (and other phenomena that cause local disruption of recombination) is out in MBE academic.oup.com/mbe/article/... (1/n)
Reposted by Gregor Gorjanc
Truly impressive number of birds migrating tonight. More than 800 MILLION birds up in the air right now❗ #BirdMigration
September 25, 2025 at 2:59 AM
Truly impressive number of birds migrating tonight. More than 800 MILLION birds up in the air right now❗ #BirdMigration
Reposted by Gregor Gorjanc
English is only my second language so I had no idea about many of the gendered animal names. Peahen is so obvious but I never had heard of it before. What’s news to you? HT @Iearnenglishtip
September 24, 2025 at 1:05 PM
English is only my second language so I had no idea about many of the gendered animal names. Peahen is so obvious but I never had heard of it before. What’s news to you? HT @Iearnenglishtip
Reposted by Gregor Gorjanc
Despite this being true, I feel that a lot of gems from the old days are lost in the present literature. People just do things as if those early findings don't exist.
September 20, 2025 at 8:10 PM
Despite this being true, I feel that a lot of gems from the old days are lost in the present literature. People just do things as if those early findings don't exist.
Reposted by Gregor Gorjanc
Within-family heritability estimates for behavioural and disease phenotypes from 500,000 sibling pairs of diverse ancestries https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.17.25336022v1
September 19, 2025 at 2:41 PM
Within-family heritability estimates for behavioural and disease phenotypes from 500,000 sibling pairs of diverse ancestries https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.17.25336022v1
Reposted by Gregor Gorjanc
SimHumanity: Using SLiM 5.0 to run whole-genome simulations of human evolution https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.01.673541v1
September 2, 2025 at 8:31 AM
SimHumanity: Using SLiM 5.0 to run whole-genome simulations of human evolution https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.01.673541v1