Anorexia Nervosa Genetics Initiative (ANGI)
The Anorexia Nervosa Genetics Initiative (ANGI), an initiative of The Klarman Family Foundation, was at the time the largest and most rigorous genetic investigation of eating disorders ever conducted. Dr. Cynthia Bulik at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was the lead investigator of ANGI with collaborators from Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden (Dr. Mikael Landén), Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark (Dr. Preben Bo Mortensen), and Berghofer Queensland Institute for Medical Research, Brisbane, Australia (Dr. Nick Martin) with assistance from the University of Otago, Christchurch, New Zealand (Drs. Martin Kennedy and Jenny Jordan).
ANGI represented a global effort to detect genetic variation that contributes to this potentially life-threatening illness. In total, ANGI collected biological samples and clinical information from 13,363 individuals with anorexia nervosa as well as healthy controls who were matched by ancestry and geography.
Recruitment for ANGI is currently closed. A series of blog posts describes the results and meaning of the ANGI study.
Anorexia Nervosa Genetics Initiative (ANGI) Part 1: The Results, July, 2019
Anorexia Nervosa Genetics Initiative (ANGI) Part 2: The Process, July, 2019
Personal Reflections on What the ANGI Results Mean for Patients, Families and Clinicians Today: Part 4, July, 2019
If you are a researcher interested in accessing data or biological samples from ANGI, click here for details. Genome-wide association study (GWAS) summary statistics are available on the Downloads page of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium website.
The ANGI team is grateful to all participants worldwide, to the research teams in the USA, Europe, and Australasia who helped create this unprecedented resource, and to all of the clinicians, researchers, bloggers, journalists, family members, advocates, and individuals with lived experienced who joined us in our collaborative effort to make ANGI a reality.