SEMINAR: "Genome-wide association studies and the problem of �missing heritability��

Peter Visscher is head of the Queensland Statistical Genetics laboratory at the Queensland Institute of Medical Research. He is a Senior Principal Research Fellow of the National Health and Medical Research Council, honorary professor at the Institute of Molecular Bioscience, University of Queensland, and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science.

He obtained his BSc degree in the Netherlands in 1985, followed by MSc (1988) and PhD (1991) in Edinburgh. Peter held a faculty position at the University of Edinburgh from 1995, until he moved to Australia to join QIMR in 2005.

His research interests are in the understanding of the genetic basis of complex traits, including common disease and quantitative traits, and in population genetics. Peter Visscher and colleagues have explored the use of data and results from genome-wide association studies to predict genetic risk to individuals. They have also developed new methods to answer the question of the 'missing heritability'.