Handbook on Analyzing Human Genetic Data

Human genetics has been undergoing an evolution in the past several years as new knowledge and technologies are transforming the ?eld, leading to numerous new discoveriesof genes associated with complex traits such as cancer, obesity, and diabetes.

The discipline of statistical genetics is highly computational. Be it exact computational methods, simulation based, or a hybrid of the two, computational packages are indispensable tools and constant companions of researchers in the field. This handbook is intended to provide human geneticists and other biomedical researchers with guidance on selections of appropriate computational methods and software packages for their specific genetic problems. It may also be used by students and other learners as a reference in conjunction with a more theoretical and/or methodologically oriented text book. This book tries to strike a balance between methodological expositions and practical guidelines for software selections. Wherever possible, comparisons among competing methods and software are made to highlight the relative advantages and disadvantage of the approaches so that the readers can make informed choices to best match their specific needs.