AlzhEimer's Disease: Next Generation Researchers
This multi-institutional seminar series highlights team members representing the “next generation” of researchers. Their work contributes to the understanding of Alzheimer’s disease mechanism, with the goal of improving diagnosis and treatment.
Giuseppe Tosto, MD, PhD
Presentation on January 12, 2022
The role of genetic ancestry in Alzheimer’s Disease
Hispanic/Latinx populations are underrepresented in Alzheimer’s Disease research, even though these groups are at higher risk than non-Hispanic Whites. Ancestry is an understudied aspect of health disparities, as it may explain differences in frequency of diseases across populations. Genome-wide association and sequencing studies have identified many disease-associated genetic variants that are highly differentiated across populations, some of which are population-specific. These variants may impact disease risk and help explain a portion of the difference in disease burden among racial/ethnic groups. This presentation will cover recent projects carried out in Dr. Tosto’s lab that leverage genetic ancestry to study health disparities and its implication in precision medicine.
Giuseppe Tosto, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor of Neurology
Taub Institute and the Gertrude Sergievsky Center
Columbia University
Dr. Tosto is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurology at Columbia University (NY). After obtaining his Medical Degree, he completed the residency program in Neurology at University “La Sapienza” in Rome (Italy). He joined the Memory Clinic Unit where he conducted clinical work, clinical research, and supervised clinical trials for Alzheimer’s Disease.
He obtained his PhD in Neuroscience at the same university and subsequently joined Columbia University first as a post-doctoral fellow and then as an Assistant Professor of Neurology.
Since then, he has been studying the genetics of Alzheimer’s disease with a specific focus on admixed populations. He has completed genome-wide association and sequencing studies on admixed populations as well the first transcriptome-wise association study on Caribbean Hispanics.
He currently holds NIH/NIA-funded projects recruiting Central and South American participants to study dementia and aging traits.
Find Dr. Tosto’s publications here.
CADRE is administratively housed at Case Western Reserve University with support from all participating academic institutions
Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences
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