Probabilities on Pedigrees: What? How? and Why?

ElizabethThompson

Data on sets of related individuals provide information about the genetic mechanisms underlying the data. Related individuals may carry genes that are copies of a gene in a common ancestor. This gene identity-by-descent (ibd), and the probabilities with which such ibd occurs, are fundamental to explaining patterns of similarity among relatives. This talk will introduce some of the basic ideas of gene ibd, the computation of probabilities on sets of related individuals, and the inferences that can be made from observed data.