Dr Oliver Davis

Research summary

Genetic variation affects all complex human traits and disorders. However, which DNA variants affect us and how they have their effect depends on the environmental and developmental context. For example, some genetic influences may be apparent only in childhood, or only in the centre of large cities. Our lab uses emerging technologies to collect, analyse and visualize data from large population samples around the world, exploring the dynamic relationship between genotype and phenotype in humans.

We use techniques such as twin model-fitting and genome-wide analysis of ‘omics data, as well as developing our own new statistical and visual analysis approaches ...

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Biography

Oliver read Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge before studying for an MSc and PhD in statistical behavioural genetics at the MRC Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, King’s College London. After his PhD, he was awarded a Sir Henry Wellcome Fellowship by the Wellcome Trust, spending time at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics at the University of Oxford and the European Bioinformatics Unit near Cambridge. Towards the end of his fellowship he established a new lab at UCL Genetics Institute in London, before moving to Bristol in 2015.

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Links

•   Dynamic Genetics Lab website
• Follow me on Twitter

Selected publications

• Haworth, CMA & Davis, OSP, 2014, ‘From observational to dynamic genetics’. Frontiers in Genetics, vol 5.
• Davis, OSP, Band, G, Pirinen, M, Haworth, CMA, Meaburn, EL, Kovas, Y, Harlaar, N, Docherty, SJ, Hanscombe, KB, Trzaskowski, M, Curtis, CJC, Strange, A, Freeman, C, Bellenguez, C, Su, Z, Pearson, R, Vukcevic, D, Langford, C, Deloukas, P, Hunt, S, Gray, E, Dronov, S, Potter, SC, Tashakkori-Ghanbaria, A, Edkins, S, Bumpstead, SJ, Blackwell, JM, Bramon, E, Brown, MA, Casas, JP, Corvin, A, Duncanson, A, Jankowski, JAZ, Markus, HS, Mathew, CG, Palmer, CNA, Rautanen, A, Sawcer, SJ, Trembath, RC, Viswanathan, AC & others 2014, ‘The correlation between reading and mathematics ability at age twelve has a substantial genetic component’. Nature Communications, vol 5.

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Recent publications

• Reed, Z, Jones, H, Hemani, G, Zammit, S & Davis, OS, 2019, ‘Schizophrenia liability shares common molecular genetic risk factors with sleep duration and nightmares in childhood’. Wellcome Open Research, vol 4.
• Wootton, R, Lawn, R, Millard, L, Davies, N, Taylor, A, Munafo, M, Timpson, N, Davis, OS, Smith, GD & Haworth, C, 2018, ‘Evaluation of the causal effects between subjective wellbeing and cardiometabolic health: mendelian randomisation study’. BMJ, vol 362.

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View complete publications list in the University of Bristol publications system