Infering Epidemiological Causality using Mendelian Randomisation

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It is very difficult to find out whether potential risk factors for disease, such as alcohol consumption or aspects of people s diet, really have causal effects on diseases such as heart disease and cancer. Rapid developments in genetics mean that we now know about genetic variants that influence these factors. This can happen either because your genes influence the amount of a substance such as vitamin D that circulates in the blood, or because your genes influence your behaviour, such as the amount of alcohol you consume. Because your genes are a random sample of your parents genes ( Mendelian randomization ), it is possible to use genetic variants associated with modifiable risk factors of interest to study whether these risk factors really have causal effects on diseases. The statistical methods used to analyse these studies are called instrumental variables methods. These methods require development in order to make them useful in Mendelian randomization studies, including finding ways to check the assumptions made in these studies. This project aims to develop instrumental variables methods, and to apply them in particular examples of importance in medical research.