Bernie Devlin

I specialize in the development and application of methods to solve statistical problems arising in the field of genetics. This specialty is usually referred to as statistical genetics or genetic epidemiology.

My keen interest in this area stems from my scientific training in genetics and evolution. In fact, many of the statistical problems arising in genetics require a working knowledge of both evolutionary processes, which are themselves stochastic processes, as well as knowledge of the genetical structure of populations. An example is our recent work on determining the location of disease genes on human chromosomes. The aim of this research is to provide molecular geneticists with the tools they need to rapidly localize disease genes to a narrow region of a chromosome. The methods we developed, which use statistical features of the human evolutionary process as well as statistical theory, appear to be quite useful for disease gene mapping.

My research covers a broad range of topics: biometrical and population genetics, evolution, genomics, DNA forensic science, and epidemiology. I am currently analyzing data from a variety of human diseases, including Alzheimer's disease and Childhood Onset Depression. Ideally my research will contribute to a deeper understanding of the environmental and genetic factors underlying such diseases.

Some Related Publications

Devlin, B., Risch N. and Roeder, K. (1990) "No excess of homozygosity at loci used for DNA fingerprinting," Science, 249, pp. 1416-1420.

Devlin, B., Risch, N. and Roeder, K. (1992) "Forensic inference from DNA fingerprints," Journal of the American Statistical Association, 87, pp. 337-350.

Devlin, B., Fienburg, S. E. , Roeder, K., and Resnick, D. (1995) "Galton Redux: Intelligence, Race and Society," Journal of the American Statistical Association, 90, pp. 1483-1488.

Devlin, B., Risch, N., and Roeder, K. (1996) "Disequilibrium mapping: Composite likelihood for pairwise disequilibrium." Genomics, 36, pp. 1-16.