New book: An Introduction to Statistical Genetic Data Analysis

An Introduction to Statistical Genetic Data Analysis, published in February 2020, will allow students and researchers to incorporate this fast-growing field into their work. 

An Introduction to Statistical Genetic Data Analysis is designed for students and researchers without a background in molecular biology or genetics, but who would like to integrate genetic data into their research. Readers are given a blueprint of applied molecular genetic data analysis with hands-on computer exercises to test their understanding.

It is authored by Melinda Mills (Director of the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science and Professor at the University of Oxford and Nuffield College), Nicola Barban (Reader at the Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex, and a co-Director of the ESRC Research Centre on Micro-Social Change) and Felix Tropf (Assistant Professor of Social Science Genetics at École Nationale de la Statistique et de L'administration Économique and Center for Research in Economics and Statistics).

Human genetic research is now relevant beyond biology and the medical sciences, with applications in such fields as psychology, demography and economics. This book offers the first comprehensive introduction to modern applied statistical genetic data analysis covering theory, data preparation, and analysis of molecular genetic data. The aim of this book is to show applied researchers from various disciplinary backgrounds how to understand, apply, and work with genetic data for their own research. With advances in computing power, availability of data, and new techniques, this area of research has disrupted many conventions of how we think about disease and behavior. Genetics has now stretched beyond multiple disciplines and for the first time in history is it now possible to integrate large-scale molecular genetic information into research across a broad range of topics.

Professor Mills said: “We hope that by making this type of data analysis more accessible, we work toward the loftier goal of diversification not only of the people that are studied as subjects in human genetics, but also the researchers themselves and the topics they cover.”

The software and data used in the book are freely available and can be accessed online.

An Introduction to Statistical Genetic Analysis is available now, published by MIT Press.

This book was realized due to the generous funding of the ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council), UKRI (UK Research & Innovation) via the NCRM (National Centre for Research Methods) project SOCGEN (ES/N011856/1) and the European Research Council (M.C. Mills SOCIOGENOME 61560; CHRONO 835079) and ESRC MiSoC (N. Barban ES/L009153/1; ESS012486/1).

"Want to run some statistical analysis of the torrent of genetic data that is pouring into science these days? An Introduction to Statistical Genetic Data Analysis is required reading for you. Mills, Barban, and Tropf walk the reader through the basics of what a gene is and march onto advanced data analysis techniques, providing plenty of compelling examples along the way."
 

-Dalton Conley, Henry Putnam University Professor in Sociology, Princeton University and author of The Genome Factor