In March 2020 we developed a survey to collect information about COVID-19 from all adult members enrolled in the Washington State Twin Registry. The first survey completed is the baseline survey, and a follow-up survey will be sent out beginning in April 2020.
Purpose of the study In light of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the corresponding social restrictions to society, we aimed to examine the extent to which participants in WSTR are impacted by the recent events. Here is a brief summary of selected results. We would also like to thank the WSTR twins for […]
Dhondalay GKR, Bunning B, Bauer RN, Barnathan ES, Maniscalco C, Baribaud F, Nadeau KC, Andorf S. Asthma is the most prevalent chronic lung inflammatory disorder characterized by reversible airflow obstruction, affecting 358 million people worldwide, with aggravating factors like obesity, attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder, socioeconomic status like poor healthcare affordability and facility, smoking and alcohol intake. RNA sequencing […]
Cox RC, Taylor S, Strachan E, Olatunji BO. Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and insomnia are comorbid clinical conditions that are thought to result from genetic and environmental effects. Though studies have established the heritability of these disorders independently, no study to date has examined the genetic contributions to the relation between insomnia and PTSD symptoms […]
Kowynia E, Jahanfar S. Background and objectives The purpose of this project is to evaluate the association between twin sex discordance and menstrual characteristics. We hypothesize that sharing the uterus with a male twin can change ovulation programming, hence changing the menstrual cycle characteristics during adulthood. This project could be novel in discovering new physiological […]
The closest airport to Everett Community College is the Paine Field airport, which is about 10 miles south. SeaTac International Airport is 46 miles south of Everett Community College. There are several hotels within a 10-minute drive of Everett Community College. Closest hotel: Red Lion Inn & Suites, only a 10-minute walk Near the waterfront: […]
The contact information update form sent out during the 2018 thank you mailing received many responses from twins indicating that they wanted an event where they could meet other twins and learn about research being done by the WSTR. On June 19, 2019 we held the first Twins Get Together event at WSU Everett. 47 […]
Not only is it the end of 2019, it’s also the end of a decade of incredible growth for the Washington State Twin Registry (formerly the University of Washington Twin Registry). Below we summarize some highlights of the past 10 years, as well as the past year. Have you participated in one of our studies? […]
Bunning BJ, Contrepois K, Lee-McMullen B, Dhondalay GKR, Zhang W, Tupa D, Raeber O, Desai M, Nadeau KC, Snyder MP, Andorf S. Aging is intimately linked to system-wide metabolic changes that can be captured in blood. Understanding biological processes of aging in humans could help maintain a healthy aging trajectory and promote longevity. We performed […]
Zhu Y, Strachan E, Fowler E, Bacus T, Roy-Byrne P, Zhao J. DNA methylation plays an important role in major depressive disorder (MDD), but the specific genes and genomic regions associated with MDD remain largely unknown. Here we conducted genome-wide profiling of DNA methylation (Infinium MethylationEPIC BeadChip) and gene expression (RNA-seq) in peripheral blood monocytes […]
Duncan GE, Avery A, Hurvitz PM, Moudon AV, Tsang S, Turkheimer E. The role of built and social environments in supporting healthy lifestyles has received increased attention over the past decade, as research and prevention paradigms have shifted from a focus on individual-level behaviour change to macro-level influences embedded within social-ecological models of health that […]
PI: Perry HystadProject number: R21ES029722Project dates: 8/17/2019-7/31/2021 The built environment is an important modifiable determinant of human health, yet our ability to understand its effects on human health have been limited by the lack of scalable data on specific components (and exposures) of the built environment. The emergence of ubiquitous geo-referenced imagery in the United […]
McCall CA, Turkheimer E, Tsang S, Avery A, Duncan GE, Watson NF. Study Objectives Long and short sleep duration are associated with greater risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD); however, it is unknown how genetic and environmental influences impact this relationship. Thus, we investigated the association between sleep duration and PTSD symptoms using twin […]
Silventoinen K, Jelenkovic A, Yokoyama Y, Sund R, Sugawara M, Tanaka M, Matsumoto S, Bogl LH, Freitas DL, Maia JA, Hjelmborg JVB, Aaltonen S, Piirtola M, Latvala A, Calais-Ferreira L, Oliveira VC, Ferreira PH, Ji F, Ning F, Pang Z, Ordoñana JR, Sánchez-Romera JF, Colodro-Conde L, Burt SA, Klump KL, Martin NG, Medland SE, Montgomery […]
Duncan GE, Avery AR, Strachan E, Turkheimer E, Tsang S. It has been over 5 years since the last special issue of Twin Research and Human Genetics on ‘Twin Registries Worldwide: An Important Resource for Scientific Research’ was published. Much progress has been made in the broad field of twin research since that time, and the current […]
Moudon AV, Huang R, Stewart OT, Cohen-Cline H, Noonan C, Hurvitz PM, Duncan GE. Background Individual sociodemographic and home neighborhood built environment (BE) factors influence the probability of engaging in health-enhancing levels of walking or moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA). Methods are needed to parsimoniously model the associations. Methods Participants included 2392 adults drawn from a […]
Sewaybricker LE, Melhorn SJ, Askren MK, Webb MF, Tyagi V, De Leon MRB, Grabowski TJ, Seeley WW, Schur EA. BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES The salience network (SN) comprises brain regions that evaluate cues in the external environment in light of internal signals. We examined the SN response to meal intake and potential genetic and acquired influences on SN […]
Avery AR, Duncan GE Approximately 12% of U.S. adults have type 2 diabetes (T2D). Diagnosed T2D is caused by a combination of genetic and environmental factors including age and lifestyle. In adults 45 years and older, the Discordant Twin (DISCOTWIN) consortium of twin registries from Europe and Australia showed a moderate-to-high contribution of genetic factors […]
Goldfarb DS, Avery AR, Beara-Lasic L, Duncan GE, Goldberg J. Background Nephrolithiasis is a complex phenotype influenced by both genetic and environmental factors. Previously we found a genetic component to stone disease using a sample of male twin pairs. We now report on the genetic contribution to stones in a sample of female and male […]
Ramchandani MS, Jing L, Russell RM, Tran T, Laing KJ, Magaret AS, Selke S, Cheng A, Huang ML, Xie H, Strachan E, Greninger AL, Roychoudhury P, Jerome KR, Wald A, Koelle DM. BACKGROUND Orolabial herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) infection has wide severity spectrum in immunocompetent persons. To study the role of viral genotype […]
