Title: Polygenic risk score analysis with the addition of higher order interactions provides insight into protective and risk components of type 2 diabetes Speaker: Keri Multerer (Victoria University of Wellington) Abstract: Polygenic risk scores (PRS) based on genome wide association studies (GWAS) have been studied since about 2008. The PRS concept is based on obtaining individual DNA sequence information that is then compared for disease association using summary statics (derived from GWAS) in public databases. However, current PRS are not yet robust enough to be generally used in a clinical setting for flagging high risk individuals. Using data available in the UK Biobank with type 2 diabetes as the disease model, we have developed novel methods to incorporate higher order (epistatic) interaction weights to be included in PRS. This will help us to better understand if and by how much higher order interactions explain individual genetic risk. Currently we have improved feature selection for both main effect and epistatic interactions without sacrificing interpretability of the results leading to novel insights into the risk and protective variants driving type 2 diabetes. About the speaker: Keri Multerer is a 3rd year PhD student at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand under co-supervision of Andrew Munkacsi and Paul Atkinson. She earned a MSc in Genetics from George Washington University in Washington DC and worked in cancer research at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle before taking time off to raise three daughters. Teaching herself to code (in python) with specialised machine learning courses, Keri has integrated these two passions in her PhD thesis contributing to the fields of public health and personalised medicine.