Sharon Browning

From July 1, 2010 I am a research associate professor in the Department of Biostatistics at the University of Washington in Seattle. Previously, I was in the Department of Statistics at The University of Auckland.

Contact information

E-mail: sguy@uw.edu
Phone: (in NZ) +64-9-923-8745.
Location: (in NZ) Building 303 (Science Centre / Maths-Physics building), Room 220.
For mailing/fax information see the Department of Statistics webpage (NZ) or Department of Biostatistics contact page (UW)

Research interests

My current research is focussed on linkage disequilibrium gene mapping, particularly on methods that make use of the correlation structure in closely spaced genetic markers, and that are fast enough to be applied to whole genome scans (500K+ markers).

BEAGLE software

The BEAGLE program implements much of my recent research work (in collaboration with Brian Browning, the author of this software). BEAGLE is useful for haplotypic association testing, haplotype inference, imputation and improved genotype calling, all on a genome-wide scale. It can also detect identity by descent (not yet on a genome-wide scale for large data sets, but we're working towards that...).

Publications and editorial responsibilities

I am an associate editor for Statistical Applications in Genetics and Molecular Biology and am on the editorial board of Human Genetics.

To see a list of my peer-reviewed publications to date, mouse over the Researcher ID badge here, or go directly to my Research ID page.

Featured articles

Browning, S. R. and B. L. Browning, 2010. High-resolution detection of identity by descent in unrelated individuals. American Journal of Human Genetics, 86:526-539 (Link to abstract/article). We can detect small regions of identity by descent in supposedly unrelated individuals.

Browning, B. L. and S. R. Browning, 2009. A Unified Approach to Genotype Imputation and Haplotype-Phase Inference for Large Data Sets of Trios and Unrelated Individuals. American Journal of Human Genetics, 84: 210-223 (link to abstract/article).We extended our earlier haplotype phasing work to imputation of ungenotyped markers and to phasing of parent-offspring trios. Our approach is applicable to whole genome association data, and has high computational efficiency as well as excellent accuracy.

Madsen, B. E. and S. R. Browning, 2009. A Groupwise Association Test for Rare Mutations Using a Weighted Sum Statistic. PLOS Genetics, 5: e1000384 (link to abstract/article). We provide a test for whether mutations are more common in cases than in controls (in a gene or set of genes), which provides a useful complement to single-marker association testing, particularly in those diseases for which de novo mutations play an important role.

Browning, S. R., 2008. Missing data imputation and haplotype phase inference for genome-wide association studies. Human Genetics, 124:439-450 (link to abstract/article). This is a review article.

Browning, B. L. and S. R. Browning, 2008. Haplotypic analysis of Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium data. Human Genetics, 123:273-280 (link to abstract/article). We applied BEAGLE to haplotype and analyze the Wellcome Trust Case Control data. We found a several novel associations, as well as some interesting artifacts.

Browning, S. R. and B. L. Browning, 2007. Rapid and accurate haplotype phasing and missing data inference for whole genome association studies using localized haplotype clustering. American Journal of Human Genetics, 81:1084-1097 (link to abstract/article). A method for haplotype phasing that is fast and accurate on genome wide SNP-chip data.

Browning, B. L. and S. R. Browning, 2007. Efficient multilocus association testing for whole genome association studies using localized haplotype clustering. Genetic Epidemiology, 31:365-375 (link to abstract/article). Provides efficient software implementation of the method proposed in Browning 2006, and extensive simulation results assessing the value of the method. This paper received the Best Paper Award from the International Genetic Epidemiology Society for best paper published in Genetic Epidemiology in 2007.

Browning, S. R., 2006. Multilocus association mapping using variable-length Markov chains. American Journal of Human Genetics, 78:903-913 (link to abstract/article). This is the linkage disequilibrium / haplotype frequency model behind BEAGLE.