American Statistical Association New York City Metropolitan Area Chapter Mailman School of Public Health Columbia University Department of Biostatistics Colloquium

In case-control genetic association studies, imputation of genotypes at markers that have not been measured experimentally provides a basis for dramatically increasing the number of markers that can be tested for disease association. However, due to population differences in patterns of genetic variation, imputation accuracy and its effects on power to detect associations vary across populations. This talk will examine imputation accuracy and power in diverse worldwide populations, considering these topics in relation to features of worldwide human genetic variation and its history. The talk will conclude with a discussion of strategies for improving genotype imputation in diverse worldwide populations.

Noah Rosenberg is Associate Professor of Human Genetics, Biostatistics, and Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of Michigan. He received his M.S. in mathematics and Ph.D. in biological sciences from Stanford University. Dr. Rosenberg is an expert on human evolutionary genetics, and on the relationship of human evolution to the search for disease genes. He also has interests in theoretical population genetics, phylogenetics, and mathematical modeling in genetics and evolutionary biology more broadly.