Role: Faculty
Title: Assistant Professor
Office No: 216
Address: 485 E. Gray St
Phone: 502/852-2211
Fax: 502/852-3294
E-mail: liz.obrien@louisville.edu

Northwestern University, PhD, 1986. Anthropology: Population genetics, human evolution.

University of Utah, Dept. Human Genetics, Post-doctoral award, 1986-92. Genetic variation in Utah: pedigree & population structure, nuclear, mitochondrial & Y-chromosome variation.

University of Utah, Huntsman Cancer Institute, Research Associate, 2000-08. Genetic epidemiology: familial aggregation various genetic disorders, genetic variation & cancer risk, genetics of aging.

Genetic and genomic variation: effects on disease risk, aging, survival.

Mitochondrial variants: effects on somatic health, aging and survival.

Gene expression: intra-individual variation over human lifespan

CNV and other genomic variation: relation to plasticity, adaptation, and evolution of human life history traits.

Genetic Characterization of Breast Cancer Risk in Families: GWAS study to identify new high risk alleles for breast cancer drawing on cases and controls from very large families in Utah.

Fertility, Longevity and Aging: GWAS study to identify genetic and phenotypic characteristics of aging drawing on very large families in Utah with exceptional longevity and others.

Kerber RA, O’Brien E, Smith K, Cawthon RM. (2001). Familial excess longevity in Utah genealogies. Journal of Gerontology Biological Sciences 56A:B130-B139.

Cawthon RM, Smith KR, O'Brien E, Sivatchenko A, Kerber RA. (2003). Association between telomere length in blood and mortality in people aged 60 years or older. Lancet, 361(9355):393-.

Kerber R A, O'Brien E, (2005). A cohort study of cancer risk in relation to family histories of cancer in the Utah population database. Cancer 103(9): 1906-1915.

O’Brien E, Kerber RA, Smith KR, Mineau G, Boucher K, Reed DL. (2007). Familial mortality in the Utah population database: characterizing a human aging phenotype. Journal of Gerontology Biological Sciences 62(8): 803-12.