PHP Code

Using the PHP code extracts allows Academic Staff Profiles to be displayed in a number of different styles including the tabbed format shown below - the data is provided dynamically from the IRIS application, while maintaning the consistent look and feel of your site.

Prof David Joseph Balding

Summary

Educational Background

I received a Higher School Certificate (NSW, Australia) in 1978, after studies at Chevalier College Bowral (1973 - 76) and Kiama High Shool (1977 - 78).  I gained a total score of 444/500 in subjects: Mathematics (4 unit), Physics (2 u), Chemistry (2 u), English (2 u), and French (2 u).  My best subject was mathematics (189/200), so I decided that I may as well stick with what I was good at and continued studying that at University, after a year travelling in Europe, including a stint as a road-worker in France.  To save up for the trip I did office work in an insurance company in North Sydney, which I left for higher pay as a cleaner at the NSW Government stores (in Alexandria, Sydney, but fortunately now demolished).

My undergraduate degree was a 1st class honours in Mathematics, with University Medal, from the University of Newcastle (Aust.).  I studied there from 1980 to 83.  Summer vacations were spent doing shift work at the Port Kembla steel works, modelling water consumption at the Newcastle water utility, and health statistics research assistance - in heart disease risk factors, with Annette Dobson and Bob Gibberd.

During 1984 I held various part-time tutoring and research assistant positions at Newcastle, some with the Hunter Health Statistics Unit, and published a paper on my u/grad research project with Sean McElwain (mathematical model of tumour-induced neovascularisation).

In January 1985 I left for England, to study for a PhD in Mathematics at Oxford, which I was awarded in 1989.  My supervisor was initially John Hammersley but after a few months I switched to Peter Clifford.  My thesis, entitled "On some annihilating particle systems", involved stochastic processes and was  motivated by problems in physical chemistry (guided by collaborator Nick Green).  My college was Trinity, where I also did some tutoring work and was Junior Dean for 2 years.

 Career history

During 1988-89, while finishing my PhD, I was Junior Lecturer in Mathematical Statistics at Oxford, the first appointment in the newly-created Department of Statistics, and also Lecturer in Mathematics at Lady Margaret Hall.

In October 1989 I started my first permanent position as Lecturer in Probability & Statistics at Queen Mary & Westfield College London, a position associated with Peter Donnelly's new chair.  In 1995 I was promoted to Senior Lecturer, and in 1995 - 96 I had a sabbatical year at U Chicago (4 months; Peter Donnelly had just moved there), USC Los Angeles (2 months) and UNSW Sydney (6 months).

In January 1997 I started as Professor of Statistical Genetics in the Department of Applied Statistics at Reading, a position created by the recent retirement of Robert Curnow.  A lectureship connected with that position was awarded to John Whittaker, and we collaborated over many subsequent years.

In September 2001 both John and I moved to Imperial College London, in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at the St Mary's Hospital campus, Paddington.  I left Imperial to move to the UGI in September 2009.  Vincent Plagnol arrived at the UGI at the same time to take up a lectureship.

Research Summary

Since finishing my PhD I have worked to develop and apply mathematical/statistical/computational methods and ideas in genetics.  I have contributed to aspects of population, evolutionary, medical and forensic genetics.

In forensic genetics, my principal contribution has been to develop methods to allow for coancestry effects in the interpretation of DNA profiles.  Match probability formulae incorporating coancestry coefficients are often called the "Balding-Nichols formulae" following our 1994 paper.  More recently I have developed methods for the interpretation of low template DNA profile evidence, initially in collaboration with John Buckleton of ESR New Zealand (2009 paper).

The forensic match formulae are based on the multinomial-Dirichlet distribution, which I developed and applied to subpopulation allele counts.  This led to the first satisfactory definition of the coancestry coefficient (Fst, or theta), and a likelihood-based approach to its estimation.  Embedding this distribution in a hierarchical model allowing for subpopulation and locus effects, Mark Beaumont and I in our 2004 paper developed a widely-used approach for detecting loci subject to selection (evidenced by unusually high or low variation across subpopulations).  The beta-binomial (or more generally multinomial-Dirichlet) as a distribution for simulating subpopulation allele frequencies is sometimes called the "Balding-Nichols model" following our 1995 paper.

Mark and I, with Wenyang Zhang, wrote in 2002 a foundational paper in the field of Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC).  We introduced a local linear regression adjustment which has proved very useful, but perhaps just as important we provided the first useful review of the method, that had been developed in stages by earlier authors, and promoted it as a powerful and flexible statistical technique.

With Ian Wilson, I developed one of the first successful softwares (Batwing) for modelling the demographic history of populations based on explicit modelling of the genetic ancestries of individuals sampled from the populations (1998 and 2003 papers).  It has been widely used, particularly to model paternal lineages from Y-chromosome  data.

I've written or co-authored a number of review papers that have proved popular, on statistical methods for genetic association studies (2006), on Bayesian methods and on population structure and cryptic relatedness in genetic association (both 2009) and on genome-wide epigenetic studies (2011).  Will Astle, working with me, developed a fast algorithm for mixed model analysis of genetic association studies, described in our 2009 review and available within the MixAbel section of the GenAbel R software.

Currently I continue my established pattern of very wide ranging applications of statistics in genetics.  I am involved in projects on statistical methods for pharmacogenetics, including genetic covariates in pharmacokinetic models, sequencing for rare variants in inherited cardiac conditions, genomic selection in crops and breed identification in mixed-breed dogs.  I also remain active in statistical methods for forensic DNA profiles.

Research Activities

  • Computational statistics
  • Epidemiology and Biostatistics
  • Evaluation of forensic DNA profiles
  • Evolutionary Genetics
  • Genetic Epidemiology
  • Genetics
  • pharmacogenetics
  • population genetics

Recent Publications

Displaying 50 most recent publications. For the full list please visit UCL Discovery

  1. Balding DJ,Krawczak M,Buckleton JS,Curran JM (2013) Decision-making in familial database searching: KI alone or not alone? Forensic Sci Int Genet, 7(1), 52 - 54. 10.1016/j.fsigen.2012.06.001.
  2. Scutari M,Mackay I,Balding DJ (2013) Improving the Efficiency of Genomic Selection.
  3. Bertrand J,Balding DJ (2013) Multiple single nucleotide polymorphism analysis using penalized regression in nonlinear mixed-effect pharmacokinetic models. Pharmacogenet Genomics, 23(3), 167 - 174. 10.1097/FPC.0b013e32835dd22c.
  4. Speed D,Hemani G,Johnson MR,Balding DJ (2012) Improved heritability estimation from genome-wide SNPs. Am J Hum Genet, 91(6), 1011 - 1021. 10.1016/j.ajhg.2012.10.010.
  5. Walley AJ,Jacobson P,Falchi M,Bottolo L,Andersson JC,Petretto E,Bonnefond A,Vaillant E,Lecoeur C,Vatin V,Jernas M,Balding D,Petteni M,Park YS,Aitman T,Richardson S,Sjostrom L,Carlsson LM,Froguel P (2012) Differential coexpression analysis of obesity-associated networks in human subcutaneous adipose tissue. Int J Obes (Lond), 36(1), 137 - 147. 10.1038/ijo.2011.22.
  6. Speed D,Balding DJ (2012) Understanding complex traits: from farmers to pharmas. Genome Med, 4(7), 59. 10.1186/gm360.
  7. Pagani L,Kivisild T,Tarekegn A,Ekong R,Plaster C,Gallego Romero I,Ayub Q,Mehdi SQ,Thomas MG,Luiselli D,Bekele E,Bradman N,Balding DJ,Tyler-Smith C (2012) Ethiopian genetic diversity reveals linguistic stratification and complex influences on the Ethiopian gene pool. Am J Hum Genet, 91(1), 83 - 96. 10.1016/j.ajhg.2012.05.015.
  8. Mead S,Uphill J,Beck J,Poulter M,Campbell T,Lowe J,Adamson G,Hummerich H,Klopp N,Rückert IM,Wichmann HE,Azazi D,Plagnol V,Pako WH,Whitfield J,Alpers MP,Whittaker J,Balding DJ,Zerr I,Kretzschmar H,Collinge J (2012) Genome-wide association study in multiple human prion diseases suggests genetic risk factors additional to PRNP. Hum Mol Genet, 21(8), 1897 - 1906. 10.1093/hmg/ddr607.
  9. Rakyan VK,Down TA,Balding DJ,Beck S (2011) Epigenome-wide association studies for common human diseases. Nat Rev Genet, 12(8), 529 - 541. 10.1038/nrg3000.
  10. Vignal CM,Bansal AT,Balding DJ (2011) Using penalised logistic regression to fine map HLA variants for rheumatoid arthritis. Ann Hum Genet, 75(6), 655 - 664. 10.1111/j.1469-1809.2011.00670.x.
  11. Ramasamy A,Curjuric I,Coin LJ,Kumar A,McArdle WL,Imboden M,Leynaert B,Kogevinas M,Schmid-Grendelmeier P,Pekkanen J,Wjst M,Bircher AJ,Sovio U,Rochat T,Hartikainen AL,Balding DJ,Jarvelin MR,Probst-Hensch N,Strachan DP,Jarvis DL (2011) A genome-wide meta-analysis of genetic variants associated with allergic rhinitis and grass sensitization and their interaction with birth order. J Allergy Clin Immunol, 128(5), 996 - 1005. 10.1016/j.jaci.2011.08.030.
  12. (2011) Handbook of Statistical Systems Biology.
  13. Balding D (2011) Inference in complex systems INTRODUCTION INTERFACE FOCUS, 1(6), 805 - 806. 10.1098/rsfs.2011.0074.
  14. O'Reilly PF,Balding DJ (2011) Admixture provides new insights into recombination. Nat Genet, 43(9), 819 - 820. 10.1038/ng.918.
  15. Chahal HS,Stals K,Unterlander M,Balding DJ,Thomas MG,Kumar AV,Besser GM,Atkinson AB,Morrison PJ,Howlett TA,Levy MJ,Orme SM,Akker SA,Abel RL,Grossman AB,Burger J,Ellard S,Korbonits M (2011) Brief Report: AIP Mutation in Pituitary Adenomas in the 18th Century and Today. NEW ENGL J MED, 364(1), 43 - 50.
  16. Cockram J,White J,Zuluaga DL,Smith D,Comadran J,Macaulay M,Luo Z,Kearsey MJ,Werner P,Harrap D,Tapsell C,Liu H,Hedley PE,Stein N,Schulte D,Steuernagel B,Marshall DF,Thomas WT,Ramsay L,Mackay I,Balding DJ,AGOUEB Consortium ,Waugh R,O'Sullivan DM (2010) Genome-wide association mapping to candidate polymorphism resolution in the unsequenced barley genome. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 107(50), 21611 - 21616. 10.1073/pnas.1010179107.
  17. Nunes MA,Balding DJ (2010) On optimal selection of summary statistics for approximate Bayesian computation. Stat Appl Genet Mol Biol, 9, Article34. 10.2202/1544-6115.1576.
  18. Zabaneh D,Balding DJ (2010) A genome-wide association study of the metabolic syndrome in Indian Asian men. PLoS One, 5(8), e11961. 10.1371/journal.pone.0011961.
  19. Calboli FC,Tozzi F,Galwey NW,Antoniades A,Mooser V,Preisig M,Vollenweider P,Waterworth D,Waeber G,Johnson MR,Muglia P,Balding DJ (2010) A genome-wide association study of neuroticism in a population-based sample. PLoS One, 5(7), e11504. 10.1371/journal.pone.0011504.
  20. Balding D,Weale M,Richards M,Thomas M (2010) Genetic and Isotopic Analysis and the UK Border Agency Significance, 7(2), 58 - 61.
  21. Coin LJ,Asher JE,Walters RG,Moustafa JS,de Smith AJ,Sladek R,Balding DJ,Froguel P,Blakemore AI (2010) cnvHap: an integrative population and haplotype-based multiplatform model of SNPs and CNVs. Nat Methods, 7(7), 541 - 546. 10.1038/nmeth.1466.
  22. Su SY,Asher JE,Jarvelin MR,Froguel P,Blakemore AI,Balding DJ,Coin LJ (2010) Inferring combined CNV/SNP haplotypes from genotype data. Bioinformatics, 26(11), 1437 - 1445. 10.1093/bioinformatics/btq157.
  23. Beaumont MA,Nielsen R,Robert C,Hey J,Gaggiotti O,Knowles L,Estoup A,Panchal M,Corander J,Hickerson M,Sisson SA,Fagundes N,Chikhi L,Beerli P,Vitalis R,Cornuet JM,Huelsenbeck J,Foll M,Yang ZH,Rousset F,Balding D,Excoffier L (2010) In defence of model-based inference in phylogeography REPLY MOL ECOL, 19(3), 436 - 446. 10.1111/j.1365-294X.2009.04515.x.
  24. Balding DJ (2009) DNA evidence: Interpretation of DNA profiles, 2365 - 2376.
  25. Krane DE,Bahn V,Balding D,Barlow B,Cash H,Desportes BL,D'Eustachio P,Devlin K,Doom TE,Dror I,Ford S,Funk C,Gilder J,Hampikian G,Inman K,Jamieson A,Kent PE,Koppl R,Kornfield I,Krimsky S,Mnookin J,Mueller L,Murphy E,Paoletti DR,Petrov DA,Raymer M,Risinger DM,Roth A,Rudin N,Shields W,Siegel JA,Slatkin M,Song YS,Speed T,Spiegelman C,Sullivan P,Swienton AR,Tarpey T,Thompson WC,Ungvarsky E,Zabell S (2009) Time for DNA Disclosure SCIENCE, 326(5960), 1631 - 1632.
  26. Eleftherohorinou H,Wright V,Hoggart C,Hartikainen AL,Jarvelin MR,Balding D,Coin L,Levin M (2009) Pathway analysis of GWAS provides new insights into genetic susceptibility to 3 inflammatory diseases. PLoS One, 4(11), e8068. 10.1371/journal.pone.0008068.
  27. Al-Bustan SA,Alkhalaf M,Al-Rashdan I,Al-Otaibi S,Al-Baker E,Balding D,Alnaqeeb MA (2009) Apolipoprotein E, CI and B gene polymorphisms in a sample of patients with coronary heart disease in the Kuwaiti population. Med Princ Pract, 18(4), 294 - 299. 10.1159/000215727.
  28. Vignal C,Bansal AT,Balding DJ,Binks MH,Dickson MC,Montgomery DS,Wilson AG (2009) Genetic association of the major histocompatibility complex with rheumatoid arthritis implicates two non-DRB1 loci. Arthritis Rheum, 60(1), 53 - 62. 10.1002/art.24138.
  29. Meyre D,Delplanque J,Chèvre JC,Lecoeur C,Lobbens S,Gallina S,Durand E,Vatin V,Degraeve F,Proença C,Gaget S,Körner A,Kovacs P,Kiess W,Tichet J,Marre M,Hartikainen AL,Horber F,Potoczna N,Hercberg S,Levy-Marchal C,Pattou F,Heude B,Tauber M,McCarthy MI,Blakemore AI,Montpetit A,Polychronakos C,Weill J,Coin LJ,Asher J,Elliott P,Järvelin MR,Visvikis-Siest S,Balkau B,Sladek R,Balding D,Walley A,Dina C,Froguel P (2009) Genome-wide association study for early-onset and morbid adult obesity identifies three new risk loci in European populations. Nat Genet, 41(2), 157 - 159. 10.1038/ng.301.
  30. Balding DJ (2009) Genetic Policing: The Use of DNA in Criminal Investigations CAN J CRIMINOL CRIM, 51(2), 271 - 271.
  31. Vignal C,Bansal AT,Balding DJ,Binks MH,Dickson MC,Montgomery DS,Wilson AG (2009) Challenges in mapping non-HLA-DRB1 major histocompatibility genes in rheumatoid arthritis: comment on the article by Vignal et al Reply ARTHRITIS RHEUM, 60(7), 2207 - 2208. 10.1002/art.24808.
  32. Balding D,Ferrari PA,Fraiman R,Sued M (2009) Limit theorems for sequences of random trees TEST, 18(2), 302 - 315. 10.1007/s11749-008-0092-z.
  33. Stephens M,Balding DJ (2009) Bayesian statistical methods for genetic association studies. Nat Rev Genet, 10(10), 681 - 690. 10.1038/nrg2615.
  34. Lopes JS,Balding D,Beaumont MA (2009) PopABC: a program to infer historical demographic parameters. Bioinformatics, 25(20), 2747 - 2749. 10.1093/bioinformatics/btp487.
  35. Chambers JC,Zhang W,Zabaneh D,Sehmi J,Jain P,McCarthy MI,Froguel P,Ruokonen A,Balding D,Jarvelin MR,Scott J,Elliott P,Kooner JS (2009) Common genetic variation near melatonin receptor MTNR1B contributes to raised plasma glucose and increased risk of type 2 diabetes among Indian Asians and European Caucasians. Diabetes, 58(11), 2703 - 2708. 10.2337/db08-1805.
  36. Zabaneh D,Chambers JC,Elliott P,Scott J,Balding DJ,Kooner JS (2009) Heritability and genetic correlations of insulin resistance and component phenotypes in Asian Indian families using a multivariate analysis. Diabetologia, 52(12), 2585 - 2589. 10.1007/s00125-009-1504-7.
  37. Balding DJ,Buckleton J (2009) Interpreting low template DNA profiles. Forensic Sci Int Genet, 4(1), 1 - 10. 10.1016/j.fsigen.2009.03.003.
  38. Astle W,Balding DJ (2009) Population Structure and Cryptic Relatedness in Genetic Association Studies STAT SCI, 24(4), 451 - 471. 10.1214/09-STS307.
  39. Ioannidis JP,Boffetta P,Little J,O'Brien TR,Uitterlinden AG,Vineis P,Balding DJ,Chokkalingam A,Dolan SM,Flanders WD,Higgins JP,McCarthy MI,McDermott DH,Page GP,Rebbeck TR,Seminara D,Khoury MJ (2008) Assessment of cumulative evidence on genetic associations: interim guidelines. Int J Epidemiol, 37(1), 120 - 132. 10.1093/ije/dym159.
  40. Su SY,Balding DJ,Coin LJ (2008) Disease association tests by inferring ancestral haplotypes using a hidden markov model. Bioinformatics, 24(7), 972 - 978. 10.1093/bioinformatics/btn071.
  41. Balding DJ,Nichols RA (2008) A method for quantifying differentiation between populations at multi-allelic loci and its implications for investigating identity and paternity (vol 96, pg 3, 1995) GENETICA, 133(1), 107 - 107. 10.1007/s10709-007-9181-2.
  42. Calboli FC,Sampson J,Fretwell N,Balding DJ (2008) Population structure and inbreeding from pedigree analysis of purebred dogs. Genetics, 179(1), 593 - 601. 10.1534/genetics.107.084954.
  43. Chambers JC,Elliott P,Zabaneh D,Zhang W,Li Y,Froguel P,Balding D,Scott J,Kooner JS (2008) Common genetic variation near MC4R is associated with waist circumference and insulin resistance. Nat Genet, 40(6), 716 - 718. 10.1038/ng.156.
  44. Su SY,White J,Balding DJ,Coin LJ (2008) Inference of haplotypic phase and missing genotypes in polyploid organisms and variable copy number genomic regions. BMC Bioinformatics, 9, 513. 10.1186/1471-2105-9-513.
  45. Cornuet JM,Santos F,Beaumont MA,Robert CP,Marin JM,Balding DJ,Guillemaud T,Estoup A (2008) Inferring population history with DIY ABC: a user-friendly approach to approximate Bayesian computation. Bioinformatics, 24(23), 2713 - 2719. 10.1093/bioinformatics/btn514.
  46. Chadeau-Hyam M,Hoggart CJ,O'Reilly PF,Whittaker JC,De Iorio M,Balding DJ (2008) Fregene: simulation of realistic sequence-level data in populations and ascertained samples. BMC Bioinformatics, 9, 364. 10.1186/1471-2105-9-364.
  47. Hoggart CJ,Whittaker JC,De Iorio M,Balding DJ (2008) Simultaneous analysis of all SNPs in genome-wide and re-sequencing association studies. PLoS Genet, 4(7), e1000130. 10.1371/journal.pgen.1000130.
  48. Hoggart CJ,Clark TG,De Iorio M,Whittaker JC,Balding DJ (2008) Genome-wide significance for dense SNP and resequencing data. Genet Epidemiol, 32(2), 179 - 185. 10.1002/gepi.20292.
  49. O'Reilly PF,Birney E,Balding DJ (2008) Confounding between recombination and selection, and the Ped/Pop method for detecting selection. Genome Res, 18(8), 1304 - 1313. 10.1101/gr.067181.107.
  50. Baksh MF,Balding DJ,Vyse TJ,Whittaker JC (2007) Family-based association analysis with ordered categorical phenotypes, covariates and interactions. Genet Epidemiol, 31(1), 1 - 8. 10.1002/gepi.20183.

Biography

Educational Background

I received a Higher School Certificate (NSW, Australia) in 1978, after studies at Chevalier College Bowral (1973 - 76) and Kiama High Shool (1977 - 78).  I gained a total score of 444/500 in subjects: Mathematics (4 unit), Physics (2 u), Chemistry (2 u), English (2 u), and French (2 u).  My best subject was mathematics (189/200), so I decided that I may as well stick with what I was good at and continued studying that at University, after a year travelling in Europe, including a stint as a road-worker in France.  To save up for the trip I did office work in an insurance company in North Sydney, which I left for higher pay as a cleaner at the NSW Government stores (in Alexandria, Sydney, but fortunately now demolished).

My undergraduate degree was a 1st class honours in Mathematics, with University Medal, from the University of Newcastle (Aust.).  I studied there from 1980 to 83.  Summer vacations were spent doing shift work at the Port Kembla steel works, modelling water consumption at the Newcastle water utility, and health statistics research assistance - in heart disease risk factors, with Annette Dobson and Bob Gibberd.

During 1984 I held various part-time tutoring and research assistant positions at Newcastle, some with the Hunter Health Statistics Unit, and published a paper on my u/grad research project with Sean McElwain (mathematical model of tumour-induced neovascularisation).

In January 1985 I left for England, to study for a PhD in Mathematics at Oxford, which I was awarded in 1989.  My supervisor was initially John Hammersley but after a few months I switched to Peter Clifford.  My thesis, entitled "On some annihilating particle systems", involved stochastic processes and was  motivated by problems in physical chemistry (guided by collaborator Nick Green).  My college was Trinity, where I also did some tutoring work and was Junior Dean for 2 years.

 Career history

During 1988-89, while finishing my PhD, I was Junior Lecturer in Mathematical Statistics at Oxford, the first appointment in the newly-created Department of Statistics, and also Lecturer in Mathematics at Lady Margaret Hall.

In October 1989 I started my first permanent position as Lecturer in Probability & Statistics at Queen Mary & Westfield College London, a position associated with Peter Donnelly's new chair.  In 1995 I was promoted to Senior Lecturer, and in 1995 - 96 I had a sabbatical year at U Chicago (4 months; Peter Donnelly had just moved there), USC Los Angeles (2 months) and UNSW Sydney (6 months).

In January 1997 I started as Professor of Statistical Genetics in the Department of Applied Statistics at Reading, a position created by the recent retirement of Robert Curnow.  A lectureship connected with that position was awarded to John Whittaker, and we collaborated over many subsequent years.

In September 2001 both John and I moved to Imperial College London, in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at the St Mary's Hospital campus, Paddington.  I left Imperial to move to the UGI in September 2009.  Vincent Plagnol arrived at the UGI at the same time to take up a lectureship.

Qualifications

  • 1989: Doctor of Philosophy, University of Oxford
  • 1984: Bachelor of Mathematics, University of Newcastle