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John S. Witte          
                                           
Professor of Epidemiology & Biostatistics and Urology

Associate Director

Institute for Human Genetics

Head, Division of Cancer Epidemiology

Co-Leader, Program in Cancer Genetics, Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center

 

UC San Francisco

Diller Bldg, Room 388 
1450 3rd Street
San Francisco, CA 94158

(UCSF Internal Box: 3110)

jwitte@ucsf.edu

415-502-6882

Research

The Witte Lab's work encompasses a synthesis of methodological and applied genetic epidemiology, with the overall aim of deciphering the mechanisms underlying complex disease.  Our methodological work is primarily on the design and statistical analysis of genome-wide and candidate gene studies and our applied work is mostly focused on prostate cancer.  Details on our methodological and applied work can be found in our publications (PubMed search).  

Briefly, we have provided extensive applications, simulations, and software for undertaking Bayesian approaches for investigating genetic pathways, gene-environment interactions, and genome-wide association studies.  We recently developed a Bayesian multiple change-point model for segmentation and estimation of copy number variants.  With regard to study designs, we have shown that using as controls some types of family members can reduce power for detecting main genetic effects, but can provide improved power for detecting gene-environment interactions.   Current work is focusing on methods for the analysis of rare variants detected by sequencing studies. 

Our applied work includes multi-institutional prostate cancer research studies.  We have had numerous successes toward sorting out the complex nature of this disease.  These include findings from searches across the human genome and from work on specific candidate genes in the following three projects:

  1. Genome-wide association study among African-American men;

  2. Case-control study of more advanced disease and prostate cancer progression;

  3. Family-based study of brothers with and without prostate cancer.

Witte lab research has been supported by the:

  • National Institutes of Health / National Cancer Institute

  • Department of Defense

  • General Motors Foundation

  • Urologic Research Foundation

  • UCSF Department of Urology