David V Conti

Associate Professor
Division of Biostatistics
Department of Preventive Medicine

Research Topics

  1. Statistical methods in genetic epidemiology
  2. Candidate gene and pathway analysis
  3. Hierarchical models
  4. Epidemiological methods

Research Overview

My research is aimed at elucidating the genetic contribution of complex diseases from population-based samples, and is comprised of both applied genetic epidemiologic studies and development of statistical methods. Presently, my applied work focuses on elucidating the genetic contribution of candidate genes within the dopamine and serotonin pathways and their role in smoking initation, progression, and cessation. My research in statistical methodology concentrates on the use of hierarchical modeling and Bayes model averaging as a general framework for the analysis of multiple genetic polymorphisms in genes involved in numerous pathways impacting disease.

Selected Publications

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Conti, D.V. and Witte, J.S.  Hierarchical Modeling of Linkage Disequilibrium: Genetic Structure and Spatial Relations.  Am. J. Hum. Genet. 2003; 72(2):351-63.

Plummer, S.J., Conti, D.V., Paris, P.L., Curran, A.P., Casey, G., Witte, J.S.  CYP3A4 and CYP3A5 genotypes, haplotypes and risk of prostate cancer.  Cancer, Epidemiology Biomarkers and Preventions.  2003 Sep;12(9):928-32

Conti, D.V., Cortessis, V., Molitor, J., Thomas, D.C.  Bayesian modeling of complex metabolic pathways.  Human Heredity 2003 56:83-93.

Loukola, A., M. Chadha, S. G. Penn, D. Rank, D. V. Conti, D. Thompson, M. Cicek, B. Love, V. Bivolarevic, Q. Yang, Y. Jiang, D. K. Hanzel, K. Dains, P. L. Paris, G. Casey and J. S. Witte (2004). "Comprehensive evaluation of the association between prostate cancer and genotypes/haplotypes in CYP17A1, CYP3A4, and SRD5A2." Eur J Hum Genet 12(4): 321-32.
 

Conti DV and Gauderman WJ.  SNPs, Haplotypes, and Model Selection in a Candidate Gene Region: The SIMPle Analysis for Multilocus Data.  Genetic Epidemiology.  2004 Nov 12;27(4):429-44.

Millstein, J., D. V. Conti, F. D. Gilliland and W. J. Gauderman (2006). "A testing framework for identifying susceptibility genes in the presence of epistasis." Am J Hum Genet 78(1): 15-27.