University of Otago
Honours, awards, membership
- Honorary Lecturer in Statistical Genetics, University of Manchester
- Member of Genetics Otago
Research interests
I am a statistical geneticist and bioinformatician working across human and other species. My main research has been focusing on potential roles of gene-environment (GxE) and gene-gene (GxG) interactions in shaping complex phenotypes. I also have a wide range of interests including epigenomics and metagenomics.
Here my foci are (1) providing bioinformatics support to facilitate metagenomics related projects and (2) developing ideas and projects to address health issues shared across species.
Recent publication
Wei W.H., Bowes J., Plant D., Viatte S., Yarwood A., Massey J., Worthington J., Eyre S. (2016) Major histocompatibility complex harbors widespread genotypic variability of non-additive risk of rheumatoid arthritis including epistasis. Scientific Reports, 6:25014.
Wei W.H., Loh C.Y, Worthington J., Eyre S. (2016) Immunochip Analyses of Epistasis in Rheumatoid Arthritis Confirm Multiple Interactions within MHC and Suggest Novel Non-MHC Epistatic Signals. Journal of Rheumatology, 43(5):839-45.
Wei W.H., Hemani G., Haley C.S. (2014) Detecting epistasis in human complex traits. Nature Review Genetics, 15(11): 722-33.
Wei W.H., Guo Y., Kindt A.S.D., Merriman T.R., Semple C.A., Wang K., Haley C.S. (2014) Abundant local interactions in the 4p16.1 region suggest functional mechanisms underlying SLC2A9 associations with human serum uric acid. Human Molecular Genetics, 23: 5061-8.
Wei W.H., Gyenesei A., Semple C.A., Haley C.S. (2013) Properties of local interactions and their potential value in complementing genome-wide association studies. PLoS One, 8(8): e71203.
Gyenesei A., Moody J., Semple C.A., Haley C.S, Wei W.H. (2012) High throughput analysis of epistasis in genome-wide association studies with BiForce. Bioinformatics, 28 (15): 1957-1964.
Gyenesei A., Moody J., Laiho A., Semple C.A., Haley C.S, Wei W.H. (2012) BiForce Toolbox: Powerful high-throughput computational analysis of gene-gene interactions in genome-wide association studies. Nucleic Acids Research, 40 (W1): W628-W632.
Wei W.H., Hemani G., Vitart V., Gyenesei A., Cabrera-Cardenas C., Navarro P., Huffman J., Hayward C., Knott S.A., Hicks A.A., Rudan I, Pramstaller P.P., Wild S.H., Wilson J.F., Campbell H., Hastie N., Wright A.F., Haley C.S. (2012) Genome-wide interaction analysis of body mass index in human population isolates. European Journal of Human Genetics, 20: 857-862.
Wei W.H., Duan Y., Haley C.S., Ren J., de Koning D.J. & Huang L. (2011) High throughput analyses of epistasis for swine body dimensions and organ weights. Animal Genetics, 42(1): 15-21.
Wei W.H., Knott S., Haley C.S. & de Koning D.J. (2010) Controlling false positives in the mapping of epistatic QTL. Heredity, 104: 401-409.
Molan A.L., Liu Z. & Wei W.H. (2009) Evaluation of antioxidant activity and appetite modulation of green teas with high and low levels of organic selenium in rats. International Journal of Medical and Biological Frontiers, 16: 85-100.
Molan A.L., Flanagan J., Wei W.H. & Moughan P.J. (2009) Selenium-containing green tea has higher antioxidant and prebiotic activities than regular green tea. Food Chemistry, 114, 829-835.