Determinants and Mechanisms Involved in Alcohol Consumption and its Health Consequences

In the current proposed research, I will be using genetic, environmental and metabolite data from the UK Biobank, the Airwave health monitoring study and published genome-wide association studies as well as animal models in order to highlight determinants, mechanisms and pathways involved in alcohol consumption and related diseases. I will use UK Biobank data to study risk factors and determinants of alcohol consumption as well as diseases caused by alcohol consumption. By using alcohol consumption data and metabolites in the Airwave study, I will identify genes that are linked to alcohol-related metabolites. I will then test alcohol-metabolite genes in the UK Biobank study to highlight pathways that are linked to fat accumulation in liver via alcohol consumption. I will additionally test animal models to identify the underlying biology behind the association of genes and alcohol consumption.

Here, I propose to use genetic and phenotype data to systematically explore genetic and environmental factors as well as gene-environment interactions involved in alcohol consumption and alcohol induced latent changes in liver. I will use large-scale genetic and phenotype data from the UK Biobank study and he Airwave health monitoring study. I will validate the results in collaboration with universities of Liverpool and Leicester. My main aim is to unravel mechanisms involved in alcohol consumption and its consequences. I specifically aim to identify (1) phenotypic and genetic determinants and gene-environment interactions involved in alcohol consumption and its related disease. Here, I will use UK biobank study data and agnostically identify phenotypes associated with alcohol consumption. I will additionally select alcohol-related genetic variants from existing literature and identify phenotypes associated with selected genes in the UK Biobank and consequently test gene-environment interactions. (2) Identify biologic mechanisms involved in alcohol consumption using animal models. This will be done in collaboration with universities of Liverpool and Leicester (3) Identify pathways involved in fat accumulation in liver. Here, I will use metabolites from the Airwave study to identify alcohol-related metabolites. Consequently using the Airwave study, I will identify genes associated with alcohol-related metabolites for further investigation using the UK Biobank genetic and imaging data, to identify pathways involved in fat accumulation in liver through alcohol consumption. (4) Highlight brain areas involved in alcohol consumption using bioinformatics approaches in combination with brain imaging and genetic data (5) Identify novel outcomes caused by alcohol consumption. Here, I will use Mendelian Randomization (MR) study to investigate causality between alcohol consumption with related diseases.