Eating Disorders Working Group Leadership
AFRID Sub-Group Chairs Leadership
Work with us!
If you have questions regarding the PGC ED workgroup or projects that are currently being conducted, please contact the workgroup chairs.
For any questions or ideas related to research dissemination (e.g., via this webpage, social media, blogs, press outlets), please contact the workgroup outreach liaison.
If you have questions about how to access summary statistics or genotype-level data, or are interested to submit a secondary analysis proposal, please contact the workgroup data access committee representative.
About Us
Our History
The eating disorders workgroup has been a part of the PGC since 2013. During that time, our membership has grown to include over 200 investigators from over 20 countries spanning North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia, and Australasia. Our group focuses on the study of anorexia nervosa (AN), bulimia nervosa (BN), binge-eating disorder (BED), and avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID). We welcome your participation and are eager to collaborate with investigators who might be willing to share raw genotypic data or summary statistics. If you are interested in learning more about our group, please contact Jessica Johnson.
Our Motivation
Prof. Cynthia Bulik (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden), Assoc. Prof. Laura Huckins (Yale University), and Assoc. Prof. Zeynep Yilmaz (Aarhus University) chair our group. Our interdisciplinary membership includes graduate and postdoctoral trainees from a range of disciplines as well as distinguished faculty in psychiatry, psychology, biostatistics, genetics, nutrition, and related fields. We unite researchers and clinicians from around the world to curate large samples of DNA and phenotypic information to address critical questions about genetic and environmental causes of eating disorders. Our current goals are to rapidly increase sample size and diversity for our AN GWAS, to complete our transdiagnostic binge-eating behavior GWAS and to continue boosting sample size and diversity to complete GWAS for BN, BED, and ARFID. Ultimately, our goals are to develop new treatments, improve outcomes, and eliminate mortality from all eating disorders.
Get Involved!
Members of the workgroup stay connected through regular conference calls on the first Thursday of every month and via our workgroup listserve. Please contact Jessica Johnson if interested in learning more about the conference calls. If you are a member of the eating disorders workgroup and have questions about a specific analysis or if you are interested in joining an ongoing approved secondary analysis project, please contact the investigator leading that project.
We are an open and welcoming group. If you have samples from patients with eating disorders and would like to join the group and have your samples genotyped, please contact us. If you are interested in hearing more, please contact either Cynthia Bulik or Gerome Breen.
Publications
Watson, H. J., Thornton, L. M., Yilmaz, Z., Baker, J. H., Coleman, J. R., Adan, R. A., ... & Halmi, K. A. (2022). Common genetic variation and age of onset of anorexia nervosa. Biological psychiatry global open science, 2(4), 368-378. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpsgos.2021.09.001
Watson, H.J., Yilmaz, Z., Thornton, L.M. et al. Genome-wide association study identifies eight risk loci and implicates metabo-psychiatric origins for anorexia nervosa. Nat Genet 51, 1207–1214 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41588-019-0439-2
Hübel, C., Gaspar, H.A., Coleman, J.R.I. et al. Genetic correlations of psychiatric traits with body composition and glycemic traits are sex- and age-dependent. Nat Commun 10, 5765 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-13544-0
Munn‐Chernoff, MA, Johnson, EC, Chou, Y‐L, et al. Shared genetic risk between eating disorder‐ and substance‐use‐related phenotypes: Evidence from genome‐wide association studies. Addiction Biology. 2020; e12880. https://doi.org/10.1111/adb.12880
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