Grad student's work helping in
study of diseased genes

A team of developers at SAS, including NC State bioinformatics graduate student Christine Duarte, has collaborated with researchers from Purdue University and Duke Medical Center to produce a new statistical procedure that will aid the search for genes associated with disease.

The procedure uses genetic markers to find locations (loci) on animal chromosomes that are associated with a diseased or other “binary” trait (one that is either present or absent), Duarte said. The procedure, called Proc BTL, also estimates genetic recombination rates between loci and the degree to which the trait is associated with a particular chromosome location.

“Once a locus is found, the biologists take over and try to find a gene in that region that controls the trait of interest,” Duarte said.

Working under the direction of Russ Wolfinger, head of the genomics department at SAS, Duarte was responsible for the successful programming and implementation of the statistical analyses.

The statistical approaches were developed by two NC State alumnae, Dr. Lauren McIntyre of Purdue University, who is the principal investigator on the NSF-funded project, and Dr. Cynthia Coffman of Durham Veterans Affairs Medical Center and Duke University Medical Center.

Duarte had virtually no knowledge of statistics when she began her internship last January. “The learning curve was steep,” Duarte said. She had to get up to speed on BTL theory, refresh her knowledge of basic C programming and learn the ropes of product development.

“The project is a nice mix of theoretical work and programming and it has introduced me to some important concepts in statistical genetics,” she said.

Posted November 21, 2003

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