Sharon Browning

I am a research associate professor in the Department of Biostatistics at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Contact information

E-mail: sguy@uw.edu
Phone: +1 206 616 5037.
Location: Health Sciences Building F-652.
For mailing/fax information see the Department of Biostatistics contact page.

Research interests

My current research is focussed on linkage disequilibrium gene mapping and population genetics, 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 (1M+ markers) and sequence data.

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.

Publications and editorial responsibilities

I am an associate editor for The American Journal of Human Genetics and 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 ResearcherID page.

Featured articles

Browning, S. R. and E. A. Thompson, 2012. Detecting Rare Variant Associations by Identity-by-Descent Mapping in Case-Control Studies. Genetics, 190: 1521-1531 (Link to open access article). An investigation into the utility of IBD mapping. Link to associated analysis scripts.

Browning, S. R. and B. L. Browning, 2011. Haplotype phasing: existing methods and new developments. Nature Reviews Genetics, 12: 703-714 (Link to abstract/article). A review of the current state of haplotype phasing with a focus on statistical methods.

Browning, B. L. and S. R. Browning, 2011. A Fast, Powerful Method for Detecting Identity by Descent. American Journal of Human Genetics, 88: 173-182 (Link to abstract/article). We can detect small regions of identity by descent in supposedly unrelated individuals in very large data sets (GWAS size).

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 La rge 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 2008 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.