Webinar IRISCAT - Dr. Gerard Muntané "Pleiotropy & human complex disease"

Complex diseases have a highly polygenic architecture with a large genetic overlap with other diseases/traits. The underlying genetic architecture of common diseases suggests that human diseases are far more linked than previously expected, suggesting substantial pleiotropy between contributing genetic variants, frequently showing opposite directions. It is likely that disease risk alleles can affect patients through intricate pleiotropic relationships increasing or reducing the risk of comorbid diseases, or vice versa, or even affecting their lifespans.

CV:  always got fascinated about human evolution, especially its relation to human brain abilities and specific diseases. In 2010 I got a PhD in Biology in the study of neurological disorders. Then, I moved to USA at the George Washington University to study of human brain evolution under the supervision of Chet Sherwood. In 2015, I joined the Evolutionary Genomics Lab at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra as a Beatriu de Pinós PostDoctoral Fellowship in the comparative genomics study of ageing. My research interest involved the comprehensive understanding of how genetic alterations in key pathways contribute to brain diseases, brain evolution and senescence. Finally, in 2018, I joined the Institut d’Investigació Sanitària Pere Virgili (IISPV), where I am leading the research line focused on evolutionary genomics of psychiatric disorders. Here, I am studying the pleiotropic links and evolutionary trade-offs affecting psychiatric disorders, as the result of considering that different forces may act on pleiotropic variants and with different impact on individual fitness.