Current Appointment

Associate Professor
Department of Population Medicine
Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute

Research Interests

Statistical genetics and genomics including high-dimensional statistics, computational statistics, causal inference, Mendelian randomization, and mediation analysis

Publications

Publications can be found on Google Scholar.

Selected Software

reverseDirection

An R package that examines the ability to use MR to infer the effect direction. On GitHub and implements the method from the following paper:

• Lutz SM, Wu AC, Hokanson JE, Vansteelandt S, Lange C. (2021) Caution Against Examining the Role of Reverse Causality in Mendelian Randomization. Gen Epi.

pleiotropy

An R package that tests for common and rare variant associations with multiple phenotypes using the Hausdorff metric in a permutation based framework. On GitHub and implements the method from the following paper:

• Lutz SM, Fingerlin T, Hokanson JE, Lange C. (2016) A General Approach to Testing for Pleiotropy with Rare and Common Variants. Genetic Epidemiology. 41(2):163-170.

SecondaryPhenotype

An R package that adjusts for ascertainment bias when testing for genetic associations of secondary phenotypes in population based studies. On GitHub and implements the method from the following paper:

• Lutz SM, Hokanson JE, Lange C. (2014) An Alternative Hypothesis Testing Strategy for Secondary Phenotype Data in Case-Control Genetic Association Studies. Frontiers in Genetics. 5 (188).

reverseMA

An R package that examines mediation analysis in the presence of reverse causality. On GitHub and implements the method from the following paper:

• Lutz SM, Sordillo J, Hokanson JE, Wu AC, Lange C. (2020) The Effects of Misspecification of the Mediator and Outcome in Mediation Analysis. Gen Epi.

RNAseqRare

An R package that examines expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) analyses of rare variants for RNA-seq data. On GitHub and implements the method from the following paper:

• Lutz SM, Thwing A, Fingerlin TE. (2019) eQTL Mapping of Rare Variant Associations Using RNA-seq Data: An Evaluation of Approaches. PLoS ONE.

Umediation

An R package that examines the role of unmeasured confounding of the exposure-mediator-outcome relationship in mediation analysis. On GitHub and implements the method from the following paper:

• Lutz SM, Thwing A, Schmiege S, Kroehl M, Baker C, Starling A, Hokanon JE, Ghosh D. (2017) Examining the Role of Unmeasured Confounding in Mediation Analysis with Genetic and Genomic Applications. BMC Bioinformatics. 18(1):344.

NPBAT

An interactive software package for the analysis of population based genetic association studies. On Google Sites and implements the method from the following paper:

• Lutz SM, Yip WK, Hokanson JE, Laird N, Lange C. (2013) A General Semi-Parametric Approach to the Analysis of Genetic Association Studies in Population-Based Designs. BMC Genetics. 14(13).

CausalScreen

An R package that implements a screening step to increase power when testing for direct genetic effects of multiple SNPs in family based association studies using causal inference methodology. On GitHub and implements the methods from the following papers:

• Lutz SM, Vansteelandt S, Lange C. (2013) Testing for Direct Genetic Effects Using a Screening Step in Family-Based Association Studies. Frontiers in Genetics. 4 (243).

• Vansteelandt S, Goetgeluk S, Lutz S, Waldamn I, Lyon H, Schadt EE, Weiss ST, Lange C. (2009) On the Adjustment for Covariates in Genetic Association Analysis: A Novel, Simple Principle to Infer Direct Effects. Genetic Epidemiology. 33(5): 394-405.