Email

elizabeth.atkinson@bcm.edu

Positions

Faculty - Assistant Professor

Molecular & Human Genetics
Baylor College of Medicine

Addresses

T621 (Lab)

Taub Research Building, room 621
1 Baylor Plaza
Houston, TX 77030
United States
elizabeth.atkinson@bcm.edu

Professional Statement

Learn more about our group on our lab website: https://www.bcm.edu/research/faculty-labs/elizabeth-atkinson-lab

The primary goal of the Atkinson Lab is to reduce disparities in genomics research across ancestries. We accomplish this by leveraging global genomic datasets and cutting-edge computational techniques to build and apply resources for the improved statistical genetic study of diverse human populations that genomics has so far underserved. Our work is centered around neuropsychiatric traits with a particular focus on admixed American populations, though many of the tools we build are broadly applicable across phenotypes and populations, giving them the potential for widespread impact on human health.

A necessary precursor to accounting for global diversity in genomics research is a thorough understanding of population history and evolution, which shapes the naturally occurring patterns of genetic variation. Therefore, the second line of inquiry explores characterizing key aspects of human evolution with ancestrally tuned evolutionary statistics using global DNA collections. Elucidating the forces shaping the genetic variation of key (brain) genes in modern populations is not only of significant academic interest but is vital for determining the appropriate methods for statistical and medical genomic analyses of diverse datasets.

We are in the leadership of multiple international consortia working to generate diverse datasets, including the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder working group, Latin American Trans-Ancestry Initiative for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, the All of Us Research Evenings with Genetics Program, and the Latin American Genomics Consortium.

Selected Publications

• Atkinson EG, Maihofer AX, Kanai M, Martin AR, Karczewski KJ, Santoro ML, et al. "Tractor uses local ancestry to enable the inclusion of admixed individuals in GWAS and to boost power.." Nature Genetics. 2021 Jan 18;53:195–204.
• Caroline M Nievergelt, Adam X Maihofer, Torsten Klengel, Elizabeth G Atkinson, Chia-Yen Chen, et al. "International meta-analysis of PTSD genome-wide association studies identifies sex-and ancestry-specific genetic risk loci." Nature Communications. 2019 Oct 8;10:1-16.
• Elizabeth Grace Atkinson, Amanda Jane Audesse, Julia Adela Palacios, Dean Michael Bobo, Ashley Elizabeth Webb, Sohini Ramachandran, Brenna Mariah Henn "No evidence for recent selection at FOXP2 among diverse human populations." Cell. 2018 Sep 6;1424-1435.
• Alicia R Martin, Meng Lin, Julie M Granka, Justin W Myrick, Xiaomin Liu, Alexandra Sockell, Elizabeth G Atkinson,..., Mark J Daly, Marcus W Feldman, Christopher R Gignoux, Carlos D Bustamante, Brenna M Henn "An unexpectedly complex architecture for skin pigmentation in Africans." Cell. 2017 Nov 30;171(6):1340-1353.