Duncan C. Thomas is Professor of Preventive Medicine, Director of the Biostatistics Division, and Verna R. Richter Chair in Cancer Research at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine.
Review
"This is a clear succinct tour of the analytical side of geneticepidemiology. There is a suitable balance of biology and statistical detailsand the text is well pitched for its target audience of graduateepidemiologists, biostatisticians, and human geneticists."--InternationalJournal of Epidemiology
Summary
This well-organized and clearly written text has a unique focus on methods of identifying the joint effects of genes and environment on disease patterns. It follows the natural sequence of research, taking readers through the study designs and statistical analysis techniques for determiningwhether a trait runs in families, testing hypotheses about whether a familial tendency is due to genetic or environmental factors or both, estimating the parameters of a genetic model, localizing and ultimately isolating the responsible genes, and finally characterizing their effects in thepopulation. Examples from the literature on the genetic epidemiology of breast and colorectal cancer, among other diseases, illustrate this process. Although the book is oriented primarily towards graduate students in epidemiology, biostatistics and human genetics, it will also serve as acomprehensive reference work for researchers. Introductory chapters on molecular biology, Mendelian genetics, epidemiology, statistics, and population genetics will help make the book accessible to those coming from one of these fields without a background in the others. It strikes a good balancebetween epidemiologic study designs and statistical methods of data analysis.
Table of Contents
1. Overview of Genetic Epidemiology
2. Basic Concepts of Molecular Genetics
3. Principles of Mendelian Inheritance
4. Basic Epidemiological and Statistical Principles
5. Familial Aggregation
6. Segregation Analysis
7. Linkage Analysis
8. Principles of Population Genetics
9. Testing Candidate Gene Associations
10. Linkage Disequilibrium Mapping
11. Gene Characterization
12. Tying it all together: The Genetic Epidemiology of Colorectal Cancer Glossary
