Elizabeth Claire Corfield
Researcher
Responsibilities
My research focuses on investigating the causes, development, and consequences of sleep problems and fatigue, using a variety of statistical genetic approaches in genome-wide data sets. This research builds on the knowledge and techniques I learnt throughout my postdoctoral research investigating the genetics of ADHD and OCD traits with cognitive deficits and PhD research characterising the relationship between fatigue and depression. The statistical techniques I have used include, twin modelling, SNP-based heritability and genetic correlation analyses, genome-wide association (GWA) analyses, gene-based association analyses, multivariate GWA analyses, and pleiotrophy analyses. While both these projects involved the use of microarray genotyping data, my Honours project enabled me to learn how to analyse next-generation sequencing data, through the investigation of microevolution between two serial clinical isolates of an opportunistic human fungal pathogen.Additionally, I have led the effort to develop and implement a pre-imputation quality control (QC), phasing, imputation, and post-imputation QC pipeline of the Norwegian Mother, Father, and Child cohort study (MoBa). The effort was undertaken to align with current QC protocols in human genetics, account for the complex family structure in MoBa (following the Picopili family-based pipeline), and meet the standards of international consortia.