Project Start Date: Spring 2014 (as soon as possible)
Project Title: Analysis of Variant-specific Gene and Isoform Expression using RNA-seq Data
Project Contact: Paivi Pajukanta (ppajukanta@mednet.ucla.edu)

Project Description:
Current massive parallel sequencing technologies allow us to investigate human transcriptome for changes conferring the susceptibility to obesity and high serum cholesterol and triglyceride levels. We hypothesize that there are DNA sequence variants influencing allele-specific expression of near-by genes that in turn increases the risk of obesity, dyslipidemia, and cardiovascular disease. This project will develop and employ approaches elucidating these expression changes using human adipose RNA-seq data.

Required Experience: Experience with some programming language (C,
C++, Python, Java etc.), some background knowledge of high throughput
sequencing.

Possibility of Funding: Yes