Members of DISCO are dedicated to uncovering risk factors and potential pathogenic mechanisms of scoliosis. Based on these findings, they aim to develop more effective clinical diagnostic strategies and intervention methods.

Dr. Shiro Ikegawa Visited Peking Union Medical College Hospital

On September 2, Dr. Shiro Ikegawa, the director of laboratory of Bone and Joint Diseases, RIKEN center for Intergrative Medical Sciences, Tokyo, Japan, paid a visit to Beijing Key Laboratory for Genetic Research of Skeletal Deformity of Peking Union Medical College Hospital (PUMCH) and gave a lecture at the PUMCH Academic Salon Series in scholarism auditorium of PUMCH.

The Coexistence of Copy Number Variations (CNVs) and Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) at a Locus can Result in Distorted Calculations of the Significance in Associating SNPs to Disease

With the recent advance in genome-wide association studies (GWAS), disease-associated single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and copy number variants (CNVs) have been extensively reported. Accordingly, the issue of incorrect identification of recombination events that can induce the distortion of multi-allelic or hemizygous variants has received more attention.

2018 Forum for Genetics and Epigenetics of Skeletal Associated Disorders

On May 5th, 2018, DISCO study group held 2018 Forum for Genetics and Epigenetics of Skeletal Associated Disorders in Beijing, China. Professor Guixing Qiu, a senior member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering was the chairperson of the 2018 Forum for Genetics and Epigenetics of Skeletal Associated Disorders. Dr. Zhihong Wu, Dr. Nan Wu and Dr. Jianzhong Su were co-executive chairpersons of this forum. The forum lasted for 2 days.

TBX6 polymorphism is associated with congenital scoliosis

The single SNP analysis showed allele frequency of rs2289292 (exon 8, the only tagging SNP) and rs3809624 (5’untranslated region) demonstrated significant difference between CS cases and controls (P = 0.017 and P = 0.033),which suggests genetic variants of TBX6 gene is associated with CS.