Paul Burton

Professor of Genetic Epidemiology

CONTACT DETAILS

Department of Health Sciences
University of Leicester
Adrian Building, University Road
Leicester, LE1 7RH

Tel: 00 44 116 229 7274
Email: pb51@le.ac.uk

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Research Interests

Research Projects

Professional Activities

Postgraduate Supervision and Teaching

Selected Publications

RESEARCH INTERESTS:

My research interests subsume three major areas:

Methods research in biostatistics and genetic epidemiology
Applied research in genetic epidemiology and complex disease epidemiology
A broad-based interest and involvement in biomedical research strategy

RESEARCH PROJECTS

Davey Smith S, Hickman M, Henderson J, Boyd AW, Darvill D, Sterne J, Salisbury C, Gregg P, Ness AR, Hillsdon M, Lewis G, Lyons R, Delaney B, Sullivan F, Hobbs R, Purdy S, Taweel A, Campbell R, Stollenberg C, Annett H, Ford D, Snell P, Burton PR, Tobin MD, Maughan B. Influences on psychosocial and physical health in early adulthood: phenotypic enrichment of the ALSPAC cohort through linkage to primary care electronic patient records and other databases. Wellcome Trust, £1,686,058, Jan 2009 – Dec 2013.
Tobin MD, Burton PR. Methods for genome-wide association studies. MRC PhD studentship. Supervisors: (MRC. ~£55K), Jan 2009 – Dec 2011
Dixon-Woods M, Burton PR, Tobin MD, Sheehan NA. An ethnographic study of organisational, social, and professional barriers to harmonising cancer tissue banks for research. MRC PhD studentship. (MRC ~£55K), Jan 2009 – Dec 2011.
Burton PR. Wellcome Trust Supplementary Grant. Oversight of 1958 Birth Cohort (086160/Z/08/A). £45,263 May 2008-Dec 2009
Davey Smith G, Sorensen T, Timson N, Evans T, Frayling T, Nohr E, Burton P, Lathrop M, Hattersley A. Wellcome Trust Project Grant. Genome Wide Association Study of Extreme Obesity in Young Adults (084762/Z/08/Z). £1,055,397, 2008-2011
Knoppers BM, Hudson T, Burton P (co-investigator & "Project Leader for Research"), et al. P3G (PUBLIC POPULATION PROJECT IN GENOMICS). Genome Canada International Consortium Initiative. $34M (Canadian) = approximately £15M. Jan 2007 – April 2010
Burton PR Wellcome Trust Supplementary Grant. Genetics Advisory Group for 1958 Birth Cohort (068545/B/02/Z). £3,636 Jan 2006-Dec 2006
Davey Smith G, Ness A, Burton PR, Day I, Emond A, Henderson J, Lewis G, Peters T, Shaw M, Tilling K. Joint MRC and Wellcome Trust Programme Grant. The Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children: consolidation of a two-generation cell-line backed resource for the study of the environmental and genetic determinants of health and development from before birth to late puberty. MRC (G9815508), WT (076467/Z/05/Z) £8,942,000 (2 x £4,471,000) Jan 2006 – Dec 2010
Stoltenberg C, Burton PR, Peltonen L, Harris J, Magnus P, Davey Smith G, Baur M, Gasparini P, Bertranpetit J, Litton J, Palmgren J, Adami HO, Walker S, Hudson TJ, Boomsma D, Cambon Thomsen A, Knoppers BM, van Duijn C, Metspalu A, Kattai K, Macek M, Trichopoulos D, Lagiou P. European Union 6th Framework Coordination Action (LSHG-CT-2006-518418). Harmonising population-based biobanks and cohort studies to strengthen the foundation of European biomedical science in the post-genome era. €800,000 March 2006 - Aug 2009
Tobin MD, Samani NJ, Burton PR. MRC Training Fellowship for Dr C Hajat. The genetic and environmental regulation of ambulatory blood pressure and pulse waveform phenotype. £165,246 Sept 2005-August 2008
Collins R, Landray M, Burton PR, Dixon-Woods M, Muir K, Rodden T, Ford I, Cobbe S, Elliott P, Newton J. MRC Strategic Grant (E-Science: application ID 6869). Virtual Organizations for Trials and Epidemiological Studies (VOTES). £2,500,000 Sept 2004-August 2007

PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES

Current honorary position held:

Honorary Consultant in Public Health Medicine
East Leicestershire PCT
DPH: Dr Rashmi Shukla

Current professional committee memberships include:

UK Biobank (MRC, Wellcome Trust, DH, Scottish Executive
~ Steering Commitee, Ordinary Member, August 2005-
Wellcome Trust, MRC, ESRC, Advisory Committee to all British Birth Cohorts, Chair, January 2009-
Wellcome Trust, Study Design Expert Group, Ordinary Member, August 2004 –
Wellcome Trust, Study Design Expert Group, Chair, January 2009 –
Wellcome Trust, Basic Science Interview Panel, Ordinary Member, June 2007-
Wellcome Trust, Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium Management Committee, Ordinary Member, May 2005 –
Public Populations Project in Genomics (Montreal, Canada), Steering Committee, Chair, July 2006 –
Public Populations Project in Genomics (Montreal, Canada), Chief Scientific Officer, June 2008-
GeneLibrary Ireland, International Scientific Advisory Board, Ordinary Member, September 2008-

POSTGRADUATE SUPERVISION AND TEACHING

Recent PhD students include:

Nick Taub
Methods to assess ascertainment in epidemiological registers, with application to congenital heart defects.
PhD Awarded, March 2006

Jack Bowden
Adjusting for ascertainment bias in genetic epidemiology
PhD Awarded, November 2007

Amadou Gaye
Methods for genome-wide association studies.
Current

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

2009, 2008, 2007, 2005-2006, 2000-2004, Book Chapters

2009

Burton PR, Hansell AL, Fortier I, Manolio TA, Khoury MJ, Little J, Elliot P. Size matters: just how big is BIG?: Quantifying realistic sample size requirements for human genome epidemiology. International Journal of Epidemiology 2009;38:263-273

Reynolds R, Lambert PC, Burton PR; BSAC Extended Working Parties on Resistance Surveillance. Analysis, power and design of antimicrobial resistance surveillance studies, taking account of inter-centre variation and turnover. J Antimicrobial Chemotherapy 2008:62 (suppl 2):ii29-39

Newton-Cheh C, Johnson T, Gateva V, Tobin MD, Bochud M, …., Burton PR, et al. Eight blood pressure loci identified by genomewide association study of 34,433 people of European ancestry. Nature Genetics 2009 (in press).

2008

Palmer TM, Thompson JR, Tobin MD, Sheehan NA, Burton PR. Adjusting for bias and unmeasured confounding in Mendelian randomization studies with binary responses. International Journal of Epidemiology, 2008:37:1161–1168

Knoppers BM, Fortier I, Legault D, Burton PR. The Public Population Project in Genomics (P3G): a proof of concept? Eur J Hum Genet 2008;16(6):664-5.

Samani NJ, Braund PS, Erdmann J, Gotz A, Tomaszewski M, Linsel-Nitschke P, (including Burton PR), et al. The novel genetic variant predisposing to coronary artery disease in the region of the PSRC1 and CELSR2 genes on chromosome 1 associates with serum cholesterol. J Mol Med 2008.

Sheehan NA, Didelez V, Burton PR, Tobin MD. Mendelian randomisation and causal inference in observational epidemiology. PLoS Med 2008;5(8):e177.

Tobin MD, Kahonen M, Braund P, Nieminen T, Hajat C, Tomaszewski M, (including Burton PR), et al. Gender and effects of a common genetic variant in the NOS1 regulator NOS1AP on cardiac repolarization in 3761 individuals from two independent populations. Int J Epidemiol 2008.

Tobin MD, Tomaszewski M, Braund PS, Hajat C, Raleigh SM, Palmer TM, (including Burton PR), et al. Common variants in genes underlying monogenic hypertension and hypotension and blood pressure in the general population. Hypertension 2008;51(6):1658-64.

Wallace C, Newhouse SJ, Braund P, Zhang F, Tobin M, Falchi M, (including Burton PR), et al. Genome-wide association study identifies genes for biomarkers of cardiovascular disease: serum urate and dyslipidemia. Am J Hum Genet 2008;82(1):139-49.

Tobin MD, Ka¨ho¨nen M, Braund P, Nieminen T, Hajat C, Tomaszewski M, Viik J, Lehtinen R, Ng GA, Macfarlane PW, Burton PR, Lehtima”ki T, Samani NJ.Gender and effects of a common genetic variant in the NOS1 regulator NOS1AP on cardiac repolarization in 3761 individuals from two independent populations. International Journal of Epidemiology 2008;37:1132–1141

2007

Nsengimana J, Samani NJ, Hall AS, Balmforth AJ, Mangino M, Yuldasheva N, Maqbool A, Braund P, Burton PR, Bishop DT, Ball SG, Barrett JH. Enhanced linkage of a locus on chromosome 2 to premature coronary artery disease in the absence of hypercholesterolemia. Eur J Hum Genet 2007;15(3):313-9.

Bowden J, Thompson JR, Burton PR. A two-stage approach to the correction of ascertainment bias in complex genetic studies involving variance components. Annals of Human Genetics 2007:71,220–229

Hansen M, Sullivan E, Jequier AM, Burton PR, Junk S, Yovich J, et al. Practitioner reporting of birth defects in children born following assisted reproductive technology: Does it still have a role in surveillance of birth defects? Hum Reprod 2007;22(2):516-20.

Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium (including Burton PR). Genome-wide association study of 14,000 cases of seven common diseases and 3,000 shared controls. Nature 2007;447:661-678.

Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium (including Burton PR) and The Australo-Anglo-American Spondylitis Consortium. Association scan of 14,500 nonsynonymous SNPs in four diseases identifies autoimmunity variants. Nature Genetics 2007;39(11):1329-1337.

Dixon-Woods M, Ashcroft RE, Jackson CJ, Tobin MD, Kivits J, Burton PR, et al. Beyond "misunderstanding": written information and decisions about taking part in a genetic epidemiology study. Soc Sci Med 2007;65(11):2212-22.

2005-2006

Tobin MD, Sheehan NA, Scurrah KJ, Burton PR. Adjusting for treatment effects in studies of quantitative traits: antihypertensive therapy and systolic blood pressure. Statistics in Medicine 2005;24:2911-2935.

Lambert PC, Sutton AJ, Burton PR, Abrams KR, Jones DR. How Vague is Vague? A simulation study of the impact of the use of vague prior distributions in MCMC using WinBUGS. Statistics in Medicine 2005; 24:2401-2428.

Burton PR, Scurrah KJ, Tobin MD, Palmer LJ. Covariance components models for longitudinal family data. International Journal of Epidemiology 2005;34:1063-1067

Kendrick D, Watson M, Mulvaney C, Burton P. How useful are home safety behaviours for predicting childhood injury? A cohort study. Health Education Research 2005;20:709-718.

Kendrick D, Mulvaney C, Burton PR, Watson M. Relationships between child, family and neighbourhood characteristics and childhood injury: A cohort study. Social Science and Medicine 2005;61:1905-1915

Seale C, Kirk DD, Tobin MD, Burton PR, Grundy R,Pritchard-Jones K, Dixon-Woods M. Mass media portrayals of removal of children’s tissue and impact on a tumour bank: a qualitative and quantitative analysis. British Medical Journal 2005;331:401-403.

Burton PR, Tobin MD, Hopper JL. Genetic Epidemiology 1: Key concepts in genetic epidemiology. Lancet 2005;366:941-951

Tobin MD, Raleigh SM, Newhouse S, Braund P, Bodycote C, Ogleby J, Cross D, Gracey J, Hayes S, Smith T, Ridge C, Caulfield M, Sheehan NA, Munroe PB, Burton PR, Samani NJ. Association of PRKWNK1 gene polymorphisms and haplotypes with ambulatory blood pressure in the general population. Circulation 2005;112:3423-3429

Ferreira MAR, O’Gorman L, Le Souëf P, Burton PR, Toelle BG, Robertson CF,Visscher PM, Martin NG, Duffy DL. Robust estimation of experiment-wise P-values applied to a genome-scan of multiple asthma traits identifies a new region of significant linkage on chromosome 20q13. American Journal Human Genetics 2005;77:1075-1085

The BHF Family Heart Study Research Group (including Burton PR). A genome-wide linkage study of 1933 families affected by premature coronary artery disease. The British Heart Foundation Family Heart Study. American Journal Human Genetics 2005;77:1011-1020

Davey Smith G, Ebrahim S, Lewis S, Hansell AL, Palmer LJ, Burton PR. Genetic Epidemiology 7: Genetic epidemiology and public health: hope, hype, and future prospects. Lancet 2005;366:1484-1498

Oddy WH, Pal S, Kusel MMH, Vine D, de Klerk NH, Hartmann P, Holt PG, Sly PD, Burton PR, Stanley FJ, Landau LI Atopy, eczema and breast milk fatty acids in a high-risk cohort of children followed from birth to 5 yr. Pediatr Allergy Immunol 2006;17:4-10

Ferreira MAR, O’Gorman L, Le Souëf P, Burton PR, Toelle B, Robertson CF, Martin NG, Duffy DL. Variance components analyses of multiple asthma traits in a large sample of Australian families ascertained through a twin proband. Allergy, European Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology 2006;61(2):245-53

Bowden J, Thompson JR, Burton P. Using pseudo-data to correct for publication bias in meta-analysis. Statistics in Medicine 2006;25(22):3798-813.

2000-2004

Gurrin LC, Kurinczuk JJ, Burton PR. Bayesian Statistics in Medical Research: an intuitive alternative to conventional data analysis. Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice; 2000:6:193-204

Palmer LJ, Burton PR, Faux J, James AL, Musk AW, Cookson WOCM. Independent inheritance of serum immunoglobulin E and airway responsiveness. Amer J Resp Crit Care Med; 2000; 161(6): 1836-43

Scurrah KJ, Palmer LJ, Burton PR. Variance components analysis for pedigree-based censored survival data using generalized linear mixed models (GLMMs) and Gibbs sampling in BUGS. Genetic Epidemiology 2000;19:127-148

Zubrick SR, Silburn SR, Burton PR, Blair E. Mental Health Disorders in Children and young people: scope, cause and prevention. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 2000; 34:570-578

Badawi N. Kurinczuk JJ. Mackenzie CL. Keogh JM. Burton PR. Pemberton PJ. Stanley FJ. Maternal thyroid disease: a risk factor for newborn encephalopathy in term infants. British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology 2000:107; 798-801

Hansen J, de Klerk N, Croft M, Alessandri P, Burton P. The Western Australian Twin Child Health (WATCH) study: work in progress. Australian Epidemiologist 2000:7;16-20

Palmer LJ, Burton PR, James AL, Musk AW, Cookson WOCM. Familial aggregation and heritability of asthma-associated quantitative traits in a population-based sample of nuclear families. European Journal of Human Genetics 2000;8(11):853-860.

Burton PR, Palmer LJ, Jacobs K, Keen KJ, Olson JM, Elston RC. Ascertainment Adjustment: Where Does It Take Us? American Journal of Human Genetics 2000;67(6):1505-1514

Laing IA, Hermans C, Bernard A, Burton PR, Goldblatt J, Le Soeuf PN. Association between plasma CC16 levels, the A38G polymorphism, and asthma. American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine 2000; 161:124-127.

Hall GL, Hantos Z, Petak F, Wildhaber JH, Tiller K, Burton PR, Sly PD. Airway and respiratory tissue mechanics in normal infants. American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine 2000; 162:1397-402.

Palmer, LJ. Rye, P. Gibson, N. Burton PR. Landau, L. Le Souėf. Airway responsiveness in early infancy predicts asthma, lung function and respiratory symptoms before school age. American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine 2001; 163:37-42.

Palmer, LJ. Cookson, WOCM. James, AL. Musk, AW. Burton, PR. Gibbs-sampling based segregation analysis of asthma-associated quantitative traits in a population-based sample of nuclear families. Genetic Epidemiology 2001;20:356-372
Runner up for Award for Best Paper in Genetic Epidemiology, 2001

Carter TL, Watt PM, Kumar R, Burton PR, Reaman GH, Sather HN, Baker DL, Kees UR. Hemizygous p16INK/4A deletion in pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia predicts independent risk of relapse Blood 2001;97(2);572-574

Palmer LJ, Barnes KC, Burton PR, Chen H, Cookson WOCM, CSGA, Deichmann KA, Elston RC, Holloway JW, Jacobs KB, Laitinen T, Wjst M. Meta-analysis for linkage to asthma and atopy in the chromosome 5q31-33 candidate region. Human Molecular Genetics 2001; 10: 891-899

Jacobs KB, Burton PR, Iyengar SK, Elston RC, Palmer LJ. Pooling data and linkage analysis in the chromosome 5q candidate region for asthma. Genetic Epidemiology 2001;21(supplement 1):S103-S108

Scurrah KJ, Sheehan NA, Burton PR. Association and linkage for age at onset of a common oligogenic disease using genetic variance component models. Genetic Epidemiology 2001;21(supplement 1):S680-S685.

Burton PR. Invited commentary: Gene-environment interactions: fundamental yet elusive. International Journal of Epidemiology 2001;30:1040-1041

Palmer LJ, Knuiman MW, Divitini ML, Burton PR, James AL, Bartholomew HC, Ryan G, Musk AW. Familial aggregation and heritability of adult lung function: results from the Busselton Health Study. European Respiratory Journal 2001;17:696-702

Burton PR, Palmer LJ, Keen KJ, Olson JM, Elston RC (2002). Response to Epstein et al [letter with substantive content]. American Journal Human Genetics 2002:71;441-442

Burton PR. Invited commentary: Comment on “Ascertainment adjustment in complex diseases” Genetic Epidemiology 2002;23:214-218

Tobin MD, Milligan J, Shukla R, Crump B, Burton PR. An ecological study of South Asian ethnicity and risk of childhood accidents at enumeration district level in Leicester, UK. Journal of Public Health Medicine 2002; 24 (4); 313-318.

Gurrin LC, Sly PD, Burton PR. Using imprecise probabilities to address the questions of inference and decision in randomized clinical trials. Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice 2002;8(2):255-268

Burton PR. Correcting for non-random ascertainment in generalized linear mixed models (GLMMs) fitted using Gibbs sampling. Genetic Epidemiology 2003, 24: p24-35

Burton PR, Tobin MD. Epidemiology and Genetic Epidemiology. Chapter in Balding DJ, Bishop M, Cannings C. Handbook of Statistical Genetics. Wiley, Chichester, 2003

Bown, MJ, Burton PR, Horsburgh T, Nicholson ML, Bell PRF, Sayers RD. The role of cytokine gene polymorphisms in the pathogenesis of abdominal aortic aneurysms: A case-control study. Journal of Vascular Surgery 2003;37(5):999-1005

Ruse CE, Hill MC, Burton PR, Connolly MJ, Wardlaw AJ, Parker SG. Associations of polymorphisms of the high affinity immunoglobulin E receptor in older populations. Journal of the American Geriatric Society, 2003,51(9):1265-1269

Scurrah K, Tobin M, Burton P. Longitudinal variance components models for systolic blood pressure, fitted using Gibbs sampling. BMC Genetics 2003 2003; Suppl 1: S25.

Palmer LJ , Scurrah KJ, Tobin M, Patel SR, Celedon JC, Burton PR, Weiss ST. Genome wide linkage analysis of longitudinal phenotypes using σ2A random effects (SSARs) fitted by Gibbs sampling. BMC Genetics 2003; Suppl 1: S12.

Hansen J, Allesandri PT, Croft ML, Burton PR, de Klerk NH. The Western Australian Register of Childhood Multiples: effects of questionnaire design and follow-up protocol on response rates and representativeness. Twin Research 2004;7(2):149-161

Green MJ, Green LE, Bradley AJ, Burton PR, Schukken YH, Medley GF. Bacterial isolates in the dry bovine mammary gland: Prevalence and Associations. Veterinary Record 2005;156:71-77

Tobin MD, Minelli C, Burton PR, Thompson JR. The development of Mendelian randomisation: from hypothesis testing to “Mendelian deconfounding”. International Journal of Epidemiology 2004;33:26-29.

Tobin MD, Braund PS, Burton PR, Thompson JR, Steeds R, Channer K, Cheng S, Lindpaintner K, Samani NJ. Genotypes and haplotypes predisposing to myocardial infarction: A multilocus case-control study. European Heart Journal 2004;25(6):451-453

Green, M.J., Burton, P.R., Green, L.E., Schukken, Y.H., Bradley, A.J.,
Peeler, E.J. and Medley, G.F. The use of Markov chain Monte Carlo for analysis of binary data: Patterns of somatic cells in milk and the risk of clinical mastitis in dairy cows. Preventive Veterinary Medicine 2004;64(2-4):157-74

Lambert, PC, Burton, PR, Abrams, KR, Brooke, AM. The Analysis of Peak Expiratory Flow Data Using a Three Level Hierarchical Model. Statistics in Medicine 2004; 23:3821-3839.

Burton P, Gurrin L, Sly P. Tutorial in Biostatistics: Extending the simple linear regression model to account for correlated responses: an introduction to generalized estimating equations and multilevel mixed modelling. Originally published as: Statistics in Medicine 1998; 17:1261-1291. Selected for reprinting in full as a “Key Tutorial in Biostatistics” in: D’Agostino RB (Ed). Tutorials in Biostatistics: Volume 2. Wiley, Chichester, 2004.

Chapters

1. Burton PR, Bowden J, Tobin MD. Epidemiology and Genetic Epidemiology. Chapter in Balding DJ, Bishop M, Cannings C. Handbook of Statistical Genetics. Wiley, Chichester, in press, 2007

2. Burton PR, Fortier I, Deschenes M, Hansell A, Palmer L. Biobanks and Biobank Harmonization. In: Davey Smith G, Burton P, Palmer L, editors. An Introduction to Genetic Epidemiology. Bristol: Policy Press, in press, 2007

3. Burton PR, Tobin MD, Hopper JL. Key concepts in genetic epidemiology. In: Davey Smith G, Burton P, Palmer L, editors. An Introduction to Genetic Epidemiology. Bristol: Policy Press, in press, 2007

4. Burton PR, Bowden J, Tobin MD. Epidemiology and Genetic Epidemiology. Chapter in Balding DJ, Bishop M, Cannings C. Handbook of Statistical Genetics. Wiley, Chichester, 2003

5. Burton PR, Fortier I, Knoppers BM. The Global Emergence of Epidemiological Biobanks: Opportunities and Challenges. In: Khoury MJ, Gwinn M, Bradley L, Little J, Higgins JP, Ioannidis JP, editors. Human Genome Epidemiology (Second Edition). Atlanta: National Office of Public Health Genomics, In press (2008).

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