Blog - Page 5 of 6

SparkINFERNO Accepted in Bioinformatics

Posted on May 4, 2020September 15, 2021 by Briana Vogel

PNGC is pleased to announce the release of SparkINFERNO, a next-generation of INFERNO (INFERring the molecular mechanisms of NOn-coding genetic variants) bioinformatics pipeline. While genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have identified over 70,000 disease-associated genetic variants, most hits are in the non-coding region, which makes their interpretation difficult. SparkINFERNO, a scalable, high-throughput bioinformatics pipeline characterizing noncoding […]

Event Recap: The Alzheimer’s Disease Genetics Consortium (ADGC) 10-Year Symposium

Posted on December 10, 2019September 15, 2021 by Briana Vogel

Last month, on November 12 and 13, the Alzheimer’s Disease Genetics Consortium (ADGC) 10-Year Symposium took place at the Inn at Penn in Philadelphia, PA. The event was sponsored by the Perelman School of Medicine and the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, and it was organized by ADGC, Penn Neurodegeneration Genomics Center (PNGC) and […]

The Founders of PNGC

Posted on August 14, 2019September 15, 2021 by Lauren Kleidermacher

The Penn Neurodegeneration Genomics Center was founded three years ago by Dr. Gerard Schellenberg and Dr. Li-San Wang. Together they have contributed over 40 years of their lives to Alzheimer’s research. How did you get started in Alzheimer’s research? Dr. Schellenberg: Dr. Schellenberg was offered a grant in 1982 for Alzheimer’s research. At the time, […]

PNGC at AAIC – 2019 Recap

Posted on August 9, 2019September 15, 2021 by Briana Vogel

PNGC members had a great experience at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC) this year. AAIC took place in Los Angeles from July 12-17. We presented four posters during the conference and the National Institute on Aging Genetics of Alzheimer’s Disease Data Storage Site (NIAGADS) exhibited for the first time. In addition, Dr. Adam Naj […]

PNGC Congratulates Dr. Leung on BAND3 Award

Posted on July 30, 2019September 15, 2021 by Briana Vogel

PNGC is pleased to announce that Dr. Fanny Leung, Research Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania and PNGC faculty member, recently had an application funded under the 2019 Biomarkers Across Neurodegenerative Diseases (BAND 3) Program. This award is sponsored by The Alzheimer’s Association, Alzheimer’s Research UK (ARUK), The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF), and the Weston Brain […]

AD/PD 2019 Recap

Posted on April 24, 2019April 22, 2021 by Briana Vogel

AD/PD^TM 2019, the 14th International Conference on Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Diseases and related neurological disorders, was held in Lisbon on March 26-31. The conference is at the forefront of unraveling the mechanisms and improving the treatment of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and other related neurodegenerative diseases. AD/PD^TM Conferences uniquely combine distinct neurodegenerative diseases in one setting and examine their similarities and differences;

Alex Amlie-Wolf Defends Ph.D. Thesis at Penn

Posted on April 19, 2019April 22, 2021 by Briana Vogel

On Friday, April 12, Genomics and Computational Biology student Alex Amlie-Wolf defended his Ph.D. thesis. His work during his time as a student in the GCB program included the development of the INFERNO method, a software tool and web server that integrates public genomic data with GWAS summary statistics to characterize the mechanisms of noncoding […]

IGAP Identifies New Genes Implicated in Alzheimer’s Disease

Posted on March 4, 2019October 11, 2024 by Briana Vogel

The International Genomics of Alzheimer’s Project (IGAP) has identified five new genes that increase risk for Alzheimer’s Disease, as well as confirmed the association of another 20 genes and AD risk. The consortium has also found that tau related mutations could play an earlier role in disease development than previously understood. IGAP is led by […]

Badri Vardarajan Speaks at Penn

Posted on January 4, 2019April 22, 2021 by Briana Vogel

Penn Neurodegeneration Genomics Center (PNGC) had the exciting opportunity to host Dr. Badri Vardarajan last semester. Dr. Vardarajan gave a seminar style talk around some of the work he and his team are doing at Columbia, and we’ve recapped below. Dr. Vardarajan has a background in computational biology and is an Assistant Professor of Bioinformatics […]

DASHR 2.0 Released: Integrated database of human small non-coding RNA genes and mature products

Posted on November 6, 2018September 15, 2021 by Briana Vogel

PNGC is pleased to announce the release of the DASHR v2.0 database of human small non-coding RNAs (sncRNAs). DASHR v2.0 is freely available at https://lisanwanglab.org/DASHRv2. This is an extremely useful resource and reference for the community studying non-coding RNAs and their diverse roles in often tissue-specific cellular processes related to human diseases. DASHR (Database of […]

Penn Medicine Press Release Highlights New Data Sharing Service

Posted on August 15, 2018October 14, 2022 by Briana Vogel

Recently, Penn Medicine News wrote a press release describing the new NIAGADS Data Sharing Service (DSS), which will distribute genomic data to qualified investigators. Initially, whole-genome sequence data will be available for 5,000 subjects, with more data to be released within a year. “Genetic findings for Alzheimer’s disease are critical for identifying targets for therapeutic […]

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