Dr Toni-Kim Clarke
Toni Clarke is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Edinburgh in the Division of Psychiatry. Toni’s work focuses on the genomic basis of substance use disorders with a focus on alcohol consumption and misuse. Previously Toni has worked at the University of Pennsylvania conducting pharmacogenetic studies of cocaine and opioid use and treatment. Prior to this Toni received her PhD from King’s College London in 2010 where she studied the role of brain stress systems in the development of addiction disorders.
Toni’s current research includes looking for genetic risk factors for substance abuse and also epigenetic patterns associated with the use of drugs. Toni is also interested in using genetic data to better understand potentially causal relationships between alcohol and health related traits identified from epidemiological studies. Future work will include using large population based cohorts and medical record linkage data to better understand the impact that alcohol use has on health.
A genetic study of alcohol consumption in a large population based cohort and the genetic overlap between alcohol use and other health-related traits
Alcohol consumption has been linked to over 200 diseases and is responsible for over 5% of the global disease burden. We performed a genome-wide association study of alcohol consumption in 112,117 individuals who are part of the UK Biobank cohort and aged between 40-69 years. Alcohol consumption ranged from 0-102 units per week in this sample with a mean intake of ~15 units per week. We report that 13% of the variance in alcohol consumption in this sample can be explained by genetic factors. Thirteen genetic variants were identified which were associated with alcohol consumption including variants in alcohol metabolizing genes (ADH1B, ADH1C) and also variants located in brain-expressed genes (CADM2). Using genome-wide data we also identified traits which are genetically correlated with alcohol consumption. Significant positive genetic correlations were found between alcohol consumption and smoking, years of schooling and HDL cholesterol. This study characterizes the genetic factors which underpin alcohol consumption in middle/older aged British individuals and uses this information to identify traits that may be causally associated with alcohol consumption.
Co-Authors
Mark Adams – University of Edinburgh Gail Davies – University of Edinburgh David Howard – University of Edinburgh Lynsey Hall – Newcastle University Caroline Hayward – University of Edinburgh Archie Campbell – University of Edinburgh David Porteous – University of Edinburgh Sandosh Padmanabhan – University of Glasgow Alison Murray – University of Aberdeen Blair Smith – University of Dundee Ian Deary – University of Edinburgh Andrew McIntosh – University of Edinburgh
Conflicts of interest:
No conflict of interest