Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Brent Richards @brent-richards.bsky.social · 17d

At @5PrimeSciences, giving back is part of who we are.

This year, our team chose to support @MSF
—to deliver critical medical care in humanitarian crises.

We’re proud to have joined the Pledge 1% Movement, committing 1% of our profits each year to health and education charities

Brent Richards @brent-richards.bsky.social · Aug 7

Our paper out in JCEM showing bias that can creep into Mendelian randomization studies via:

1. Collider bias due to participant selection
2. Indirect genetic effects
3. Collider bias due to GxE effects in nonlinear MR.

Led by the great Tianyuan Lu

academic.oup.com/jcem/article...

No More Free Lunch: Challenges to Mendelian Randomization Due to Sample Selection and Complex Methods

Abstract. Mendelian randomization (MR) is increasingly used in epidemiological studies to investigate causal relationships. MR depends on 3 fundamental ins

academic.oup.com

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Reposted by Brent Richards

Satoshi Yoshiji, MD, PhD @satoshiyoshiji.bsky.social · Jun 24

Join us today at 4:40 pm at the Festival of Genomics & Biodata (@fogenomics.bsky.social) in Boston to explore how proteomics and genomics drive drug-target discovery!

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Reposted by Brent Richards

euanashley @euanashley.bsky.social · Jun 14

Atul Butte died yesterday.
The world lost a giant.
A big bear of a man.
With a huge smile.
With love for everyone.
With energy that could power a room.
I loved everything about Atul.
I loved how he was always happy.
I loved how excited he was about science and helping people.

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Brent Richards @brent-richards.bsky.social · Jun 14

Let’s hope Anne enables research

Brent Richards @brent-richards.bsky.social · Jun 3

Come join 5Prime as we grow our team to use human genetics and other —omics to accelerate drug development.

New post for a Software Engineer:

5primesciences.com/careers/

Careers - 5PrimeSciences

Careers 5 Prime Sciences uses insights from human genetics to accelerate drug development and increase return on investment in the life sciences. Using unique datasets and advanced human genetics anal...

5primesciences.com

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Brent Richards @brent-richards.bsky.social · Jun 2

The Big Five personality traits definitely have clear genetic determinants.

I'm surprised by the lack of spousal assortment and lack of shared environmental confounding though...Anyone care to guess why this is the case?

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

www.biorxiv.org

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Reposted by Brent Richards

Andrea Ganna @andganna.bsky.social · Jun 1

We have 2-3 group leader positions opening @fimm-uh.bsky.social !!

We are looking for outstanding candidates in human genetics and precision medicine.

This time we have a focus on population health data science. E.g. AI for EHR/health data

Generous starting package 💰

shorturl.at/FAk6n

FIMM-EMBL Group Leaders in Molecular Medicine

jobs.helsinki.fi

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Brent Richards @brent-richards.bsky.social · May 23

After a long and storied career, Kari Stefansson exits as CEO of DeCODE Genetics.

icelandmonitor.mbl.is/news/news/20...

Kári Stefánsson steps down as CEO of DeCode Genetics

Kári Stefánsson, founder and long-time CEO of DeCode Genetics, has officially stepped down from his leadership role at the company he established nearly three decades ago. The announcement marks the e...

icelandmonitor.mbl.is

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Brent Richards @brent-richards.bsky.social · May 22

I didn't have much hope that we'd find genetic determinants of long-COVID, but after years of work, Vilma Aho, Tomoko Nakanisha, Hugo Zeberg and Hanna Ollila made it happen! (Among a few others :-))

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Genome-wide association study of long COVID - Nature Genetics

A genome-wide study by the Long COVID Host Genetics Initiative identifies an association between the FOXP4 locus and long COVID, implicating altered lung function in its pathophysiology.

www.nature.com

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Reposted by Brent Richards

Marc-André Legault @legaultm.bsky.social · May 15

My main postdoc project is now published in @AJHG! We describe a MR estimator (Quantile IV) that does not rely on parametric assumptions and allows for heterogeneous causal effects. www.cell.com/ajhg/abstrac...

A flexible machine learning Mendelian randomization estimator applied to predict the safety and efficacy of sclerostin inhibition

Mendelian randomization (MR) enables the estimation of causal effects while controlling for unmeasured confounding factors, but MR estimators often rely on strong parametric assumptions. We propose an...

www.cell.com

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Brent Richards @brent-richards.bsky.social · Apr 27

Yes. People have a very difficult understanding variance explained intuitively

Reposted by Brent Richards

Struan Grant @struangrant.bsky.social · Apr 24

PREPRINT: Led by @j-a-mitchell.bsky.social & Babette Zemel, we show higher gSOS polygenic score associated with higher pediatric aBMD 🦴 & lower fracture risk @chopresearch.bsky.social . gSOS previously developed with ML on adults by @brent-richards.bsky.social team

www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

The gSOS Polygenic Score is Associated with Bone Density and Fracture Risk in Childhood

The polygenic risk score genetic quantitative ultrasound speed of sound (gSOS) was developed using machine learning algorithms in adults of European ancestry and associates with reduced odds of fractu...

www.medrxiv.org

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Brent Richards @brent-richards.bsky.social · Apr 10

There are few more engaging, creative and relentless clinician scientists than @stephenorahilly.bsky.social

I enjoyed his visit to @mcgilluniversity.bsky.social and learning how he unpicked GDF15 as a cause of morning sickness.

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Brent Richards @brent-richards.bsky.social · Apr 6

A great scientist and clinician changes the world and brings home a well-deserved prize.

www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/artic...

Canadian scientist Daniel Drucker among winners of Breakthrough Prize for discovery of hormone used in anti-obesity drugs

Senior investigator at Mount Sinai Hospital was one of five researchers jointly awarded US$3-million in world’s largest science prize

www.theglobeandmail.com

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Reposted by Brent Richards

Alt National Park Service @altnps.bsky.social · Apr 5

To the world:
We are fighting back. Our movement has been silenced by the media here—but we are not backing down. This is what our streets looked like across multiple cities. Tomorrow, there will be more of us! Raise a glass to freedom.

—With love,
Your American allies.

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Brent Richards @brent-richards.bsky.social · Mar 25

And Kevin Liang successfully defended his PhD examining the use of human genetics to identify drug targets!

Well done Dr. Kevin

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Brent Richards @brent-richards.bsky.social · Mar 19

Does vitamin D prevent MS onset?

We have predicted this for years using Mendelian randomization.

Here, high-dose vitamin D, in individuals with Clinically Isolated Syndrome in the D-Lay trial is perhaps encouraging.

jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

High-Dose Vitamin D in Clinically Isolated Syndrome Typical of Multiple Sclerosis

This randomized clinical trial examines the efficacy of high-dose cholecalciferol (vitamin D) as monotherapy in reducing disease activity in patients with clinically isolated syndrome typical of multi...

jamanetwork.com

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Brent Richards @brent-richards.bsky.social · Mar 14

An excellent visit from @mendelrandom.bsky.social in Montreal this week.

He wants to change Mendelian randomization to "meiotic randomization"—likely a much better name.

But what would we call @mendelrandom.bsky.social ?

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Brent Richards @brent-richards.bsky.social · Mar 4

Even the @wsj.com thinks Trump's tariffs are, "the dumbest in history".

www.wsj.com/opinion/trum...

Opinion | Trump Takes the Dumbest Tariff Plunge

He says the 25% levies on Mexico and Canada will begin Tuesday. Stocks fall.

www.wsj.com

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Reposted by Brent Richards

Eric Topol @erictopol.bsky.social · Mar 3

That's right

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Brent Richards @brent-richards.bsky.social · Feb 27

I knew it!

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Reposted by Brent Richards

Daniel MacArthur @dgmacarthur.bsky.social · Feb 11

Is there a German word for being simultaneously horrified by clumsy, misguided, and deeply destructive attacks on a critical system, and by the many grossly dysfunctional and inefficient aspects of the system being attacked? Because we really need one right now.

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Brent Richards @brent-richards.bsky.social · Feb 7

Come and join our research lab at @mcgill University as a Research Associate!

If you're excited about using genomics and other omics to understand causes of disease, send me a direct message or check out the position here:

www.mcgill.ca/genepi/oppor...

Looking to do a Postdoc in Genetic Epidemiology, Human Genetics or Bioinformatics? Or looking to be a Research Associate in our Lab?

Research Associate Postdoc opportunity Research Associate Principle Duties and Responsibilities Management and execution of multiple computational genomics research studies, including but not l...

www.mcgill.ca

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Reposted by Brent Richards

Hank Green @hankgreen.bsky.social · Feb 1

If you wanted to decrease the cost of homes, one thing you wouldn’t do is put a flat tariff on your main source of timber.

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