Otto Roth Award 2015

Dr. rer. hum. biol. Christina Loley is awarded for her outstanding doctoral thesis on "Robust test statistics for autosomal and X-linked association analyses".

Sex, and thus presumably the X chromosome, play an important role in many common diseases and can influence both disease progression and disease risk. Nevertheless, the X chromosome has often been excluded from the analysis of genetic causes of disease. To fill this gap, Dr. Loley's work compared methods for analyzing X-linked gene variants. To do this, she has used both simulated and real data sets. She also developed a new method that was used in a study of the genetic causes of severe malaria. It yielded evidence for previously unknown risk genes. Nevertheless, it also showed that the goodness of the test procedures for analyzing the X chromosome is situation-dependent. However, the dissertation provides an important guideline for the analysis of the X chromosome and clarifies which additional quality controls for the X chromosome are necessary and which tests are best suited for which situation. This could better investigate and ultimately elucidate sex-dependent causes of disease. Currently, Dr. Loley is investigating the association between X-linked gene variants and the risk of heart attack within a large, international consortium (CARDIoGRAM+C4D). This project includes 35 studies from Europe, America and Asia. In total, it is currently analyzing data from over 100,000 persons.

Dr. Christina Loley, born in Münster (Westphalia) in 1982, studied psychology and then mathematics at the University of Münster. She completed her doctoral thesis at the Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics at the University of Lübeck, supervised by Prof. Dr. rer. biol. hum. Inke R. König.

The Otto Roth Award is the Medical Faculty`s annual award for an outstanding doctoral thesis donated by the Society of the University`s Alumni with an amount of 2.500 Euros.
It is named after Professor Otto Roth (1863-1944), the University`s first specialized surgeon. He became head of the Clinic of Surgery in Luebeck`s General Hospital (1897-1933) and collaborated with Heinrich Dräger (1847-1917) for the development of the world world-famous Dräger-Roth anaesthetic apparatus, allowing the thrive of modern anaesthesiology.