Yury Loika
I graduated from Belarusian State University in 1994 with a specialization in theoretical physics. I received my Ph.D. degree in physics and applied mathematics in Match 2003 at the Institute of Molecular and Atomic Physics (National Academy of Sciences of Belarus). I have 30 years of research experience in the field of applied mathematics, physics and statistics, and 8 years of experience in the field of population-based research, bio-demography, social science, and health/aging-related disciplines. My broad expertise in mathematical and statistical modeling of different complex systems is documented by 76 publications in peer-reviewed journals in which I provided substantial contributions as co- or leading author. For the last 8 years, I have worked in BARU (SSRI, Duke University). My current scientific interests are in the field of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of complex age-related traits. I have made a substantial contribution to support health- and aging-based research in BARU on NIH-funded projects. While at Duke, I have contributed to the development of new mathematical models and innovative statistical approaches to perform pleiotropic GWAS that allows uncovering of heterogeneous genetic effects. I have participated in the application of these approaches and models for age-related traits, with Alzheimer’s disease among the others, to analyze pleiotropic and heterogeneous genetic effects. I have developed and implemented new statistical measures that can help in evaluating the efficiency of GWAS and the heterogeneity of genetic associations in different populations. More recently, I have focused on research that helps uncover complex genetic predispositions to Alzheimer’s and other age-related diseases.
