Dr. Kari North, is associate professor of epidemiology at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health, has received a four-year, $3.1 million National Institutes of Health grant that aims to uncover connections between genetic variants and some of the complex diseases that affect Hispanics and African-Americans. The grant program, CALICO II, or Genetic Epidemiology of Causal Variants Across the Life Course (Phase II), will produce analysis of DNA collected from several large studies that include African-American and Hispanic participants. The findings will pinpoint rare variants that might play a part in heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, obesity, and hypertension.