“Deciphering the Complex Genetics of Dog Behavior with Citizen Science” with Elinor Karlsson, UMass Medical School

SPONSORED JOINTLY BY THE INTERDISCIPLINARY CENTER FOR BIOETHICS ANIMAL ETHICS STUDY GROUP AND THE CANINE COGNITION CENTER AT YALE

Abstract: The behavior of pet dogs reflects thousands of years of artificial and natural selection on their genome. Through our Darwin’s Dogs project, we work closely with dog owners to combine detailed information on each dog’s behavior with high-throughput genomic data. We have reached over 10,000 dogs, providing the statistical power needed to find genetic variants, genes and pathways that underlie in complex, polygenic behaviors.

Speaker: Elinor Karlsson is Assistant Professor in Bioinformatics and Integrative Biology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and the Director of the Vertebrate Genomics Group at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Dr. Karlsson uses evolution as a tool for understanding how the human genome works. By combining signals of natural selection with genome-wide association studies, Dr. Karlsson aims to identify genes, pathways, and the functional variants underlying polygenic diseases, and translate these discoveries into advances in human health care. She is currently using this approach to find the genetic risk factors for susceptibility to infectious diseases, like cholera and viral hemorrhagic fevers, as well as psychiatric disorders (using dogs as a model organism). Elinor received her B.A. in biochemistry/cell biology from Rice University, and earned her Ph.D. in bioinformatics from Boston University for research she did on dog genetics at the Broad Institute. She did her postdoctoral research with Dr. Pardis Sabeti at Harvard University.