SSA -"Let's Talk About Stats"

April 26th

MDS 220 @ 4pm

Student Research Presentation:

Environmental-wide association study for periodontitis using NHANES

By: Grace Li

The goal of this study is to find an environmental wide association (EWA) between the environment risk factors and periodontal diseases inspired by Paetl et al. (2012). The study utilizes cross-sectional data from the National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey (NHANES) cohorts from 1999-2004 and the concept of the genome-wide association (GWA) study. However, instead of looking at a set of genetic biomarkers, the methodology is applied onto a large set of environmental factors to search for associations.  In addition, an extra step is taken to further evaluate the interactive effects between the risk factors and the environmental factors using classification regression trees (CART). The motivation is driven by the fact that in addition to genetic predisposition, the pathogenesis of periodontitis also a function/combination of socio-behavioral factors and environmental toxins. In this talk, I will discuss two important components of this project (i.e. NHANES data and CART) that I used to complete this study.

Please join us to share the research experience of our fellow graduate students.

Refreshments at 3.30pm (MDS 312)

Cookies, mini pies, and soda