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Wei-Min  Chen
Degree(s): Ph.D.
Graduate School: Johns Hopkins University of Public Health
Primary Appointment: Assistant Professor of Public Health Sciences
Research Interests:
My research focuses on the design and statistical analysis of human gene mapping data. Recently, my research has focused on the development of methods for analyzing genome-wide SNP data in datasets that include thousands of individuals.

Email Address: wmchen@virginia.edu
Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program(s)
  • Structural, Computational Biology and Biophysics
  • Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Genetics
    • Research Description

    My research focuses on the design and statistical analysis of human gene mapping data. Recently, my research has focused on the development of methods for analyzing genome-wide SNP data in datasets that include thousands of individuals.

    Genome Wide Association Analysis
    I developed a general procedure to infer missing genotypes in family-based genomewide association studies (Chen and Abecasis 2007). This work allows efficient use of family collections in genome wide association (GWA) studies, especially when the GWA follows an initial linkage scan. With this approach, only a few selected individuals in each family need to be genotyped during the GWA, and genotypes of the remaining individuals can be
    mostly inferred based on the information from flanking markers and relatives. In this work, I also proposed efficient tests for GWA analysis of quantitative traits that allow for uncertainty in the estimation of missing genotypes. These methodologies have been successfully applied to the genomewide association analysis of the gene expression data as well as a large GWA study of ~100 aging related quantitative traits (mainly cardiovascular and personality traits) in >6,000 individuals from Sardinia.

    Robust Linkage and Association Tests
    I developed a general methodology framework for quantitative trait linkage analysis making use of the Generalized Estimating Equations (GEE) (Chen et al. 2004). Using this framework, I proposed novel robust linkage tests and investigated commonly used linkage methods (Chen et al. 2005).

    Power Analysis of Linkage and Association
    I developed an efficient method to perform analytical power calculation for the variance component linkage analysis in pedigrees of any size (Chen and Abecasis 2006). I also developed a general approach to calculate the power of the Transmission/Disequilibrium Test (TDT), a widely-used test and design for association studies (Chen and Deng 2001).

    Selected Publications
  • Chen WM, Abecasis GR (2007) Family-based association tests for genomewide association scans. American Journal of Human Genetics (In Press) Sep 18; [Epub ahead of print].
  • Burdick JT, Chen WM, Abecasis GR, Cheung VG (2006) In silico method for inferring genotypes in pedigrees. Nature Genetics 38:1002-1004.
  • Pilia G*, Chen WM*, Scuteri A, Orru M, Albai G, Dei M, Lai S, Usala L, Lai M, Loi P, Mameli C, Vacca L, Deiana M, Masala M, Cao A, Najjar SS, Terracciano A, Nedorezov, T, Sharov A, Zonderman AB, Abecasis GR, Costa P, Lakatta E, Schlessinger D (2006) Heritability of cardiovascular and personality traits in 6,148 Sardinians. PLoS Genetics 2:1207-1223 (* These authors contributed equally).
  • Chen WM, Abecasis GR (2006) Estimating the power of variance component linkage analysis in large pedigrees. Genetic Epidemiology 30:471-484.
  • PubMed Listings for this Faculty Member
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    Contact Information
      Office Address: PO Box 800717, 
      Office Phone: +1 434-924-8298
      Fax Phone: +1 434-243-5787
      Web Site: http://people.virginia.edu/~wc9c/

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