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Todd Lencz

@toddlencz

Genetics, Psychiatry, Polygenic Risk Scores, Embryo Screening... https://feinstein.northwell.edu/institutes-researchers/our-researchers/todd-lencz-phd

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06.10.2023
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Latest posts by Todd Lencz @toddlencz

Client Challenge

Collab with @shaicarmi.bsky.social - Paper here:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

14.01.2026 14:45 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Conclusion: PES is quite distinct from classical PGT-M for high-penetrance variants. However, PGT-M for moderate penetrance variants has recently been adopted by some clinics. This practice is more like PES, necessitating careful consideration of all factors affecting risk.

14.01.2026 14:45 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

3) Through modeling and simulation, we show that PGT-M for a moderate penetrance variant would select the "wrong" (i.e., higher risk) embryo ~5% of the time (given at least 1 carrier and 1non-carrier embryo, both female). IOW, the non-carrier embryo is at higher risk due to PRS.

14.01.2026 14:45 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

2) By contrast, carriers of moderate penetrance (OR~2) risk variants for breast cancer (ATM, CHEK2, BARD1, RAD51C/D) demonstrated risk profiles overlapping non-carriers with PRS ~1.5SD higher (black dotted line).

14.01.2026 14:45 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

1) Carriers of BRCA1 had risk distributions that were disjoint from non-carriers, regardless of polygenic risk scores (red dashed line in Figure above). Similar results were observed for BRCA2 and PALB2 carriers (blue dashed line).

14.01.2026 14:45 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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New Year, New Paper! #PolygenicEmbryoScreening
We examined the interaction of rare and common variation for breast cancer in the context of PES, with three key findings detailed in posts below...

14.01.2026 14:45 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Check out the paper for demonstrations of this effect in simulations and three datasets. We need to understand how PGS perform in clinical settings if they are ever to be useful as predictive markers, which is what we are trying to accomplish with the FEP-GEN consortium. 5/6

18.12.2025 19:50 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Are one or more of the polygenic embryo screening companies currently active/visible in South Korea?

14.12.2025 17:34 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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Polygenic embryo screening is being marketed commercially – but how do IVF clinicians view it?

β€’ General approval is low (12%)

For specific uses:
β€’ 59% approved of health-related embryo selection
β€’ 6% approved of trait-based selection

🧡 Survey findings in NPJ Genomic Medicine

01.12.2025 20:24 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 5 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 1

See my pinned tweet for more details

20.10.2025 16:43 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Greetings #WCPG2025 from Cancun!

If you’re at the meeting and looking for a postdoctoral or research scientist position, come find me at poster M66 tonight!

20.10.2025 16:40 πŸ‘ 7 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Please see our new work, led by @shaicarmi.bsky.social - in addition to a free online risk calculator, we demonstrate (for the first time), the degree to which real-world live birth rates attenuate the potential risk reduction in polygenic embryo screening (PES)

10.09.2025 16:13 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Given that we are unlikely to scale much beyond this enormous dataset anytime soon, this appears to be quite a negative result…

22.08.2025 20:12 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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Concerns About Genetic Risk Testing for Opioid Use Disorder

We lay out three consensuses from the field of psychiatric genetics that should be considered before approving genetic tests for psychiatric disorders. The letter was signed by 140 experts in psychiatric genetics and published in Lancet Psychiatry. Now on Pubmed: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

06.08.2025 17:04 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 5 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Congratulations, Sunnyβ€”All the more impressive given the current environment. Your work is truly at the cutting edge!

24.07.2025 19:30 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Leveraging correlations between variants in polygenic risk scores to detect heterogeneity in GWAS cohorts - PubMed Evidence from both GWAS and clinical observation has suggested that certain psychiatric, metabolic, and autoimmune diseases are heterogeneous, comprising multiple subtypes with distinct genomic etiolo...

This looks fascinating - I can’t wait to read it in detail.

I am wondering if your approach resembles something we tried on a much smaller scale a few years ago: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32956347/

24.07.2025 17:43 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Need to double-check but I think it could be design / MAF cut-offs for each type of study

14.06.2025 17:50 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
https://www.biologicalpsychiatryjournal.com/article/S0006-3223(25)00989-8/fulltext

More details at the link:
t.co/ThiWw7QdkU

14.05.2025 14:13 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Concordant SNPs (low cognition / increased SZ risk) were associated with early neurodevelopmental (prenatal) forebrain abnormalities. Discordant SNPs (high cognition / increased SZ risk) associated with adult synaptic function and hindbrain (cerebellar) development. (2/3)

14.05.2025 14:13 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

New publication!
We expand on our prior work demonstrating that pleiotropic effects of cognitive GWAS can provide biological insights into schizophrenia GWAS results. We differentiated "concordant" from "discordant" subsets of schizophrenia risk SNPs (1/3)

14.05.2025 14:13 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

πŸ’― always take the reader by the hand and walk them through slowly paragraph by paragraph

08.05.2025 03:46 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Opinion | I.V.F., Gene Selection and Embryo Screening: Is This the Future of Making Babies? (Gift Article) Advances in genetic testing and artificial intelligence are changing what’s possible for those undergoing I.V.F. Are we ready for the future of fertility?

A very thoughtful and comprehensive piece on polygenic embryo screening in today's NY Times:
www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

01.04.2025 17:28 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Re-upping for the early crowd - link in reply

13.03.2025 13:03 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Circulating Blood-Based Proteins in Psychopathology and Cognition This mendelian randomization study identifies circulating proteins associated with risk for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, and cognitive task performance.

We identified 113 Bonferroni-corrected putatively causal associations (46 novel) involving 91 proteins, providing support for repurposing of anti-inflammatory agents for SCZ, amantadine for BD, retinoic acid for MDD, and duloxetine for CTP.
jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

12.03.2025 18:54 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

New Paper!
Online now in JAMA Psychiatry, we have performed a large-scale Mendelian Randomization study of circulating proteins in schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depression, and cognitive task performance.

12.03.2025 18:54 πŸ‘ 15 πŸ” 5 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 1

But then you run right into DISC1

10.03.2025 07:34 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

We have a position open in my lab. Please see my pinned post!

09.03.2025 04:08 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

I'm hiring a postdoc and/or bioinformatician in
psychiatric genomics and related fields

acnp.org/wp-content/u...

15.02.2025 19:02 πŸ‘ 8 πŸ” 4 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Unsure how recent changes in U.S. policy regarding the NIH will impact the psychiatric genetics world? You're not alone. Join ISPG for a Member’s Meetup for community discussion and support:

πŸ“… Wednesday, January 29
πŸ•— 3 PM EST
πŸ“ Pre-Register: us06web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

24.01.2025 17:55 πŸ‘ 12 πŸ” 19 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 5

For me, the simplicity and ease of both upload and download are the best parts or bioRxiv and medRxiv. (Bravo, Richard!)

If anything, I notice that the site sometimes hangs despite the simplicity of the interface, suggesting that the network is already loaded to capacity.

22.12.2024 20:05 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0