AIMRC Seminar on Genetic Mapping System for Investigating Complex Traits Sept. 27

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Xuan Zhuang, assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sciences.

The Arkansas Integrative Metabolic Research Center will be hosting a seminar at 11:50 a.m., Monday, Sept. 27, via Zoom. Xuan Zhuang, assistant professor of biological engineering, will discuss her work on a genetic mapping system for investigating the complex traits associated with diabetes in a presentation titled, "Drosophila Models & Population Resource for Investigating Genetic Basis of Diabetes."

Abstract: Metabolic disorders such as diabetes are complex diseases influenced by a variety of factors, interactions among genetic elements, and between genes and the environment. As we have seen in precision medicine, even the same genetic defect could demonstrate substantial phenotypic variability in human populations with different genetic backgrounds. Therefore, it is crucial to understand how genetic background interacts with major disease-causing factors and environments to produce differential susceptibility to disease. Drosophila is a well-established model for investigating complex traits, and it provides powerful tools for dissecting the contributions of both genes and environment on metabolism. In this talk, I will introduce an innovative design of multi-parental advanced inter-cross populations — a powerful genetic mapping system we developed for investigating natural variation in the fruit fly -- and how this resource is being applied to decipher the genetic architecture of complex traits related to the human diabetic disease.

Biography: Zhuang is a new assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the U of A. She holds a Ph.D. in biology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and completed her B.S. and M.S. in marine biology at Xiamen University, China. Prior to coming to the U of A, she was a postdoctoral research scientist in evolutionary genetics at the University of Chicago. Zhuang's research interests include genetic variation of complex traits/diseases, evolution of genetic novelty and diversity, and molecular mechanisms of new gene evolution. Investigations employ experimental and computational approaches with a combination of comparative genomics, molecular evolution and quantitative genetics, in model and non-model organisms. A recent research direction is to exploit the vast reservoir of genetic variation in fruit flies for researching complex models of human diseases (diabetes) and their interactions with environmental factors such as diet and drugs.