CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – Dr. Ziqiao Wang, assistant professor of Genome Sciences at UVA, has released findings of a joint cohort with John Hopkins University that establish a new guide to help explain the appearance and contributing factors of autism spectrum disorders in children, along with other childhood conditions.
Dr. Wang and her collaborators created what they refer to as a “statistical framework,” according to a UVA Health release, that they have named PGS-TRI. The framework quantifies a series of influences that affect a child’s health as they grow up, both within themselves as well as accrued from their parents.
Wang and her team analyzed 18,000 families, including autistic children and their parents, within several different ancestral populations. They aimed to separate the role of genetic data from environmental influences. The effect that parents’ own genetic makeup has on risk factors for their children was also of particular interest to the researchers…