Professional Summary
Sebastian Zöllner is an Assistant Professor of Biostatistics. He also holds an appointment in the Department of Psychiatry. Dr. Zöllner joined the University of Michigan after a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Human Genetics at the University of Chicago. His research effort is divided between generating new methods in statistical genetics and analyzing data. The general thrust of his work is problems from human genetics, evolutionary biology and statistical population biology.
Courses Taught
BIOSTAT665: Statistical Population Genetics
BIOSTAT866: Advanced Topics in Genetic Modeling
Education
Ph.D., Biology, University of Munich, 2001
M.S., Mathematics, University of Munich, 1997
Research Interest & Projects
As genetic information is inherited between generations, different segments of DNA are transmitted to different descendants, creating a complex structure of dependencies between sequences in present day individuals. The results of this transmission process are utilized in modern gene mapping designs, notably association mapping. The major aim of my research is to model this inheritance process, to use the resulting models for improving gene mapping algorithms and for making inferences about events in the history of a population. Presently I am working on the following ongoing projects:
1. Genome wide association mapping in Arabidopsis thaliana with tiling arrays.
Oligonucleotide tiling arrays are a novel sequencing method that is employed in Arabidopsis thaliana, covering nearly every base of its genome. A single array contains 6.3 million different 25bp oligonucleotides and can be used for detecting polymorphism or small deletion and studying gene expression. My work aims at evaluating the data from the arrays to identify haplotypes that span multiple oligonucleotides and to identify typing errors. A further goal is then to use the identified haplotypes for identifying variants that underlie quantitative traits like flowering time and seedling elongation. 2. Association mapping of alleles with complex penetrance.
Most algorithms that are used for fine-mapping of complex traits assume a simple penetrance model for the causative allele. Furthermore, they are generally not designed to allow for environmental heterozygosity. I am extending the models developed for TreeLD to allow for penetrance models like overdominance and to include environmental heterozygosity in the sample in the analysis.
3. Estimating genetic effects and models from genome wide association scan data.
After a successful scan for association it is of great interest to estimate the impact of a detected variant on the phenotype of a carrier (penetrance) and on the population as a whole (frequency). These estimates allow assessing the importance of a mutation; they may provide information about its biological effect and facilitate planning replication studies. I am developing an algorithm for estimating these parameters and the interaction of multiple loci while allowing for ascertainment effects.
Selected Publications
Zoellner S., Wen X., Hanchard N., Herbert M., Ober C., and Pritchard J. (2004). Evidence for extensive transmission distortion in the human genome. American Journal of Human Genetics, 70, 673-685.
Hellmann I., Zoellner S., Enard W. , Ebersberger I., Nickel B., and P￤￤bo S. (2003). Selection on Human Genes as revealed by comparison to Chimpanzee DNA. Genome Research, 13, 831-837.
Enard W., Khaitovich P., Klose J., Zoellner S., Heissig F., et al. (2002). Intra- and Interspecific Variation in Primate Gene Expression Patterns. Science, 296, 340-343.
Kaessmann H., Zoellner S., Gustafsson A.C., Wiebe V., Laan M., et al. (2002). Extensive Linkage Disequilibrium in Small Human Populations in Eurasia. American Journal of Human Genetics, 70, 673-685.
Zoellner S. and von Haeseler A. (2000). A Coalescent approach to study Linkage Disequilibrium between Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms. American Journal of Human Genetics, 66, 615-628.
Professional Affiliations
American Society of Human Genetics
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