You are cordially invited to join the Frontiers in Medical Research Seminar, to be delivered by Prof. Chikashi Terao on October 27, 2025 (Monday). The lecture is entitled ' Deciphering human complex traits using germline and somatic genetic variations'.

Please find the details as follows:

Date: October 27, 2025 (Monday)

Time: 10.30 am-11.30 am

Venue: Teaching Complex A Building 503 (TxA 503)

Speaker: Prof. Chikashi Terao

Host: Prof. WANG Yong-Fei

Abstract

Both genetic and environmental components define immune complex traits. Understanding genetic architectures underlying complex traits would lead to understanding of the basics of the traits and realize personalized medicine.

We found IL12B, encoding IL12/23 p40, as a key genetic component for Takayasu arteritis. Ustekinumab, a monoclonal antibody against IL12/23 p40, resulted in a good response in patients with refractory Takayasu arteritis (Am J Hum Genet. 2013; PNAS 2019).

By combining whole-genome sequence data and large-scale DNA microarray data, many rare putative causal variants were associated with human complex traits. Majority of variants showing strong effect sizes are non-coding variants, including a variant with the strongest effect size (Nat Genet 2024).

We showed that androgen receptor (AR) binding sites in normal prostate cells as a key genetic annotation in prostate cancer (Nat Commun 2022). We also showed importance of enhancers in joint cartilages in osteoarthritis and revealed that machine-learning could model genetic regulation of transcriptomes including non-coding RNA in a cell-type-dependent manner (Nat Biomed Eng 2023).

We showed that mosaic chromosomal alterations (mCA) is quite frequent in normal population. mCA revealed key differences in the genomic locations of mutations in Europeans and Japanese; these differences predicted the relative rates of chronic lymphocytic leukaemia and T cell leukaemia in these populations (Nature 2020).

About the Speaker

Professor Chikashi Terao is a leading physician-scientist whose work bridges clinical medicine and statistical genetics. He earned his M.D. and Ph.D. from Kyoto University, and has held academic positions at Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital / Harvard Medical School, and the RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Sciences. Currently, he serves as Professor at the University of Shizuoka’s School of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Team Director of the Laboratory for Statistical and Translational Genetics at RIKEN. His research focuses on translating genetic discoveries into clinical applications, with a particular emphasis on autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. He has published more than 200 peer‑reviewed papers, including Nature, Science, Nature Genetics, Nature Biomedical Engineering and Nature Communication, which have been cited over 20,000 times, with an H‑index of 62.

Please fill in the Registration Form by clicking this link https://www.wjx.cn/vm/eUrOtX8.aspx#