Faculty of Medicine - Faculty of Medicine, Memorial University of Newfoundland

In addition to conducting research, PTRG is committed to developing local infrastructure that will increase the efficiency and accuracy of genetic and epidemiological research. To meet this aim PTRG is leading the development of the Heritability Analytics Infrastructure, the analytics infrastructure to support genetic research needs within the Faculty of Medicine.

The Newfoundland and Labrador Statistics Agency is working in collaboration with the Canadian Century Research Initiative (CCRI) - a pan Canadian university initiative to create a national database of census records from 1911 to 1955. In Newfoundland this work has resulted in the development of a Newfoundland Genealogy Database, a specialized relatedness database which links pre-Confederation Newfoundland census data over the census years to create genealogies of Newfoundland families.

The HAI includes:

Data management structures to create forms to store genotype, phenotype and pedigree information all in one database
Custom linkage software (KINNECT) to,perform pedigree linkage to the Newfoundland genealogy database being created by CCRI
Genetic tools capable of utilizing ACE-Net resources to process data at a significantly faster rate
Pedigree visualization tools to display patient pedigrees and linked pedigrees

The customized software application (KINNECT) provides the ability to match individuals in a patient pedigree to individuals in the Newfoundland Genealogy Database. Once an individual is matched that pedigree information is matched to the patient pedigree information.

The HAI will provide:

Straight patient pedigree linkage
Genealogy validation
Cross study pedigree linkage
Genealogy linkage with health outcome or genetic data
Pedigree visualization
Heritability scoring and analytics