Shezhad Sheikh, MD, PhD (Associate Professor, Medicine and Genetics) and Terry Furey, PhD (Professor, Genetics and Biology) received a new R01 grant from the National Institute of Diabetes, Digestive, and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) for their project titled “High throughput functional studies of IBD-associated GWAS variants”.
Using multiple analyses (including quantitative trait loci for chromatin accessibility (caQTL), transcription factor binding (tfQTL), and massively parallel reporter assays (MPRA)), the studies will identify putative causal regulatory variants for IBD. The long-term goals of the project are 1) To fill the gap between the ability to detect genetic, gene regulatory, and gene expression variation linked to IBD and the ability to explain how that variation ultimately contributes to IBD; and 2) To provide a unique data resource for IBD investigators to access for their own studies.