2018 Laureate Profile: Professor Peter Visscher

Professor Peter Visscher

Administering Organisation: The University of Queensland

Discipline Area: Biological Sciences and Biotechnology

Fellowship project summary:

FL180100072

This project aims to exploit the availability of Big Data from the genomics revolution to understand the relationship between the genome, the environment and complex human traits. New statistical methods and user-friendly software tools will be developed and applied to datasets on millions of individuals to generate new knowledge on human life history variation and healthy ageing. This project will position Australia to benefit from rapid advances in genomic technologies, to build and sustain critical capacity in statistical genetics, and better understand the causes and consequence of individual differences in human traits from genetic and environmental factors across the entire human lifespan.

Australian Research Council funding: $3,460,832

About Professor Visscher

Professor Peter Visscher is a Professorial Research Fellow at The University of Queensland Institute for Molecular Bioscience and the Queensland Brain Institute. He is Director of the Program in Complex Trait Genomics at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience.

His research focusses on getting a better understanding of genetic variation for complex traits, including quantitative traits and disease, which are important for health outcomes and ageing. He leads a research group using quantitative genetic methods and application to large datasets to answer fundamental questions about many traits, including gene expression, gene methylation, height and body-mass-index, psychiatric disease and neurogenetic conditions.

His research crosses the boundaries of quantitative and statistical genetics, population genetics and human genetics, with applications to the study of cognition, cognitive change, and psychiatric and neurological disorders. Professor Visscher is a Senior Principal Research Fellow of the National Health and Medical Research Council. He was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 2010, and in 2018 was elected as a Foreign Member of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences and as a Fellow of the Royal Society.

Find out more about Professor Visscher’s research by visiting his profile page on The University of Queensland website.

For further information about this funding scheme, please visit the Australian Laureate Fellowships scheme page on the ARC website.