Research Interests:
- Statistical Genetics
- Pharmacogenomics
- Biomarker Discovery
- Personalized Medicine
- Bioinformatics
Biography
Dr. Zhu joined the faculty of Roswell Park in 2012 as Assistant Professor of Oncology at the Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics. She has an interdisciplinary training in biostatistics, bioinformatics, and human genetics, and has accumulated extensive collaboration experience with biologists and clinicians in genetic epidemiology studies utilizing approaches of Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS) and next-generation sequencing (NGS). Dr. Zhu completed her postdoctoral training in statistical genetics at Center for Human Genetic Variation at Duke University from 2010 to 2012. Prior to that, she received her PhD in Bioinformatics and MA in Biostatistics from SUNY at Buffalo (UB).
Positions
Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center
- Professor of Oncology
- Co-Director, Biostatistics and Statistical Genomics Resource
- Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics
Background
Education and Training
- PhD - Bioinformatics, The State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY
- MA - Biostatistics, The State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY
- BS - Molecular and Cellular Biology, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, China
Fellowship
- 2010-2012 - Postdoctoral Training - Statistical Genetics, Center for Human Genetic Variation, Duke University
Professional Memberships
- American Statistical Association
- American Society of Human Genetics
Research Overview
My primary research interest is in developing statistically sound and computationally efficient methods to pinpoint the causal genetic variants of human diseases and traits utilizing high-throughput genetics and genomics data.
My areas of research include:
- Computational method development for causal genetic variant identification
- Statistical and bioinformatics analysis of genome, epigenome, and transcriptome data
- Pharmacogenomics, genetic testing, and personalized medicine
Publications
- Zhu Q, Yan L, Liu Q, Zhang C, Wei L, Hu Q, Preus L, Clay-Gilmour AI, Onel K, Stram DO, Pooler L, Sheng X, Haiman CA, Zhu X, Spellman SR, Pasquini M, McCarthy PL, Liu S, Hahn T, Sucheston-Campbell LE. Exomechip Analyses Identify Genes Affecting Mortality after HLA-Matched Unrelated Donor Blood and Marrow Transplantation. Blood. 2018 Apr 2;131(22). doi: 10.1182/blood-2017-11-817973.
- Zhu Q, Shepherd L, Lunetta KL, Yao S, Liu Q, Hu Q, Haddad SA, Sucheston-Campbell L, Bensen JT, Bandera EV, Rosenberg L, Liu S, Haiman CA, Olshan AF, Palmer JR, Ambrosone CB. Trans-ethnic follow-up of breast cancer GWAS hits using the preferential linkage disequilibrium approach. Oncotarget. 2016 Dec 13;7(50):83160-83176. doi: 10.18632/oncotarget.13075. PMID: 27825120; PMCID: PMC5341253.
- Zhu Q, Hu Q, Shepherd L, Wang J, Wei L, Morrison CD, Conroy JM, Glenn ST, Davis W, Kwan ML, Ergas IJ, Roh JM, Kushi LH, Ambrosone CB, Liu S, Yao S. The impact of DNA input amount and DNA source on the performance of whole-exome sequencing in cancer epidemiology. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2015 Aug;24(8):1207-13. doi: 10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-15-0205. Epub 2015 May 19. PMID: 25990554; PMCID: PMC4526319.
- Liu Q, Cirulli ET, Han Y, Yao S, Liu S, Zhu Q. Systematic assessment of imputation performance using the 1000 Genomes reference panels. Brief Bioinform. 2015 Jul;16(4):549-62. doi: 10.1093/bib/bbu035. Epub 2014 Sep 22. PMID: 25246238; PMCID: PMC4580532.
- Long N, Dickson SP, Maia JM, Kim HS, Zhu Q, Allen AS. Leveraging prior information to detect causal variants via multi-variant regression. PLoS Comput Biol. 2013;9(6):e1003093. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003093. Epub 2013 Jun 6. PMID: 23762022; PMCID: PMC3675126.
- Zhu Q, Ge D, Heinzen EL, Dickson SP, Urban TJ, Zhu M, Maia JM, He M, Zhao Q, Shianna KV, Goldstein DB. Prioritizing genetic variants for causality on the basis of preferential linkage disequilibrium. Am J Hum Genet. 2012 Sep 7;91(3):422-34. doi: 10.1016/j.ajhg.2012.07.010. Epub 2012 Aug 30. PMID: 22939045; PMCID: PMC3511993.
- Zhu M, Need AC, Han Y, Ge D, Maia JM, Zhu Q, Heinzen EL, Cirulli ET, Pelak K, He M, Ruzzo EK, Gumbs C, Singh A, Feng S, Shianna KV, Goldstein DB. Using ERDS to infer copy-number variants in high-coverage genomes. Am J Hum Genet. 2012 Sep 7;91(3):408-21. doi: 10.1016/j.ajhg.2012.07.004. Epub 2012 Aug 30. PMID: 22939633; PMCID: PMC3511991.
- Zhu Q, Ge D, Maia JM, Zhu M, Petrovski S, Dickson SP, Heinzen EL, Shianna KV, Goldstein DB. A genome-wide comparison of the functional properties of rare and common genetic variants in humans. Am J Hum Genet. 2011 Apr 8;88(4):458-68. doi: 10.1016/j.ajhg.2011.03.008. Epub 2011 Mar 31. PMID: 21457907; PMCID: PMC3071924.