Overview
Background
David Evans is an NHMRC Leadership Fellow and Professor of Statistical Genetics at the University of Queensland Institute for Molecular Bioscience. He is a winner of the NHMRC Marshall and Warren Award.
He completed his PhD in Statistical Genetics at the University of Queensland in 2003, before undertaking a four-year post-doctoral fellowship at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford where he worked as part of the The International HapMap Consortium and co-led the analysis of four diseases within the first Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium. In 2007 he moved to take up a Senior Lecturer position at the University of Bristol where he led much of the genome-wide association studies work in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). In 2013 he returned to take up a chair at the University of Queensland whilst continuing to lead an MRC Programme in statistical genetics at the University of Bristol.
His research interests include the genetic mapping of complex traits and diseases (including birthweight and other perinatal traits, osteoporosis, ankylosing spondylitis, sepsis, laterality) and the development of statistical methodologies in genetic epidemiology including approaches for gene mapping, individual risk prediction, causal modelling and dissecting the genetic architecture of complex traits. He has a particular interest in Mendelian randomization and has used it and other causal methods to investigate the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD)- the idea that adverse intrauterine exposures lead to increased risk of disease in later life.
He is Academic Codirector at the NIH funded International Workshop on Statistical Genetics Methods and is faculty on the European Programme in Educational Epidemiology.
He is Associate Editor at the International Journal of Epidemiology and Behavior Genetics journals.
Availability
- Professor David Evans is:
- Available for supervision
- Media expert
Fields of research
Qualifications
- Bachelor (Honours), The University of Queensland
- Doctor of Philosophy, The University of Queensland
Research interests
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Mendelian randomization
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Genome-wide association studies
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Causal Modeling
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Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD)
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Laterality
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Sepsis
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Osteoporosis
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Ankylosing Spondylitis
Works
Search Professor David Evans’s works on UQ eSpace
2021
Journal Article
Genome-wide association study of circulating interleukin 6 levels identifies novel loci
Ahluwalia, Tarunveer S., Prins, Bram P., Abdollahi, Mohammadreza, Armstrong, Nicola J., Aslibekyan, Stella, Bain, Lisa, Jefferis, Barbara, Baumert, Jens, Beekman, Marian, Ben-Shlomo, Yoav, Bis, Joshua C., Mitchell, Braxton D., de Geus, Eco, Delgado, Graciela E., Marek, Diana, Eriksson, Joel, Kajantie, Eero, Kanoni, Stavroula, Kemp, John P., Lu, Chen, Marioni, Riccardo E., McLachlan, Stela, Milaneschi, Yuri, Nolte, Ilja M., Petrelis, Alexandros M., Porcu, Eleonora, Sabater-Lleal, Maria, Naderi, Elnaz, Seppälä, Ilkka ... CHARGE Inflammation Working Group (2021). Genome-wide association study of circulating interleukin 6 levels identifies novel loci. Human Molecular Genetics, 30 (5), 393-409. doi: 10.1093/hmg/ddab023
2021
Journal Article
Direct and indirect effects of maternal, paternal, and offspring genotypes: Trio-GCTA
Eilertsen, Espen Moen, Jami, Eshim Shahid, McAdams, Tom A., Hannigan, Laurie J., Havdahl, Alexandra S., Magnus, Per, Evans, David M. and Ystrom, Eivind (2021). Direct and indirect effects of maternal, paternal, and offspring genotypes: Trio-GCTA. Behavior Genetics, 51 (2), 154-161. doi: 10.1007/s10519-020-10036-6
2021
Journal Article
Genome-wide association study in almost 195,000 individuals identifies 50 previously unidentified genetic loci for eye color
Simcoe, Mark, Valdes, Ana, Liu, Fan, Furlotte, Nicholas A., Evans, David M., Hemani, Gibran, Ring, Susan M., Smith, George Davey, Duffy, David L., Zhu, Gu, Gordon, Scott D., Medland, Sarah E., Vuckovic, Dragana, Girotto, Giorgia, Sala, Cinzia, Catamo, Eulalia, Concas, Maria Pina, Brumat, Marco, Gasparini, Paolo, Toniolo, Daniela, Cocca, Massimiliano, Robino, Antonietta, Yazar, Seyhan, Hewitt, Alex, Wu, Wenting, Kraft, Peter, Hammond, Christopher J., Shi, Yuan, Chen, Yan ... the International Visible Trait Genetics Consortium (2021). Genome-wide association study in almost 195,000 individuals identifies 50 previously unidentified genetic loci for eye color. Science Advances, 7 (11) abd1239, eabd1239. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abd1239
2021
Journal Article
The augmented Classical Twin Design: incorporating genome‐wide identity by descent sharing into twin studies in order to model violations of the equal environments assumption
Hwang, Liang-Dar, Mitchell, Brittany L., Medland, Sarah E., Martin, Nicholas G., Neale, Michael C. and Evans, David M. (2021). The augmented Classical Twin Design: incorporating genome‐wide identity by descent sharing into twin studies in order to model violations of the equal environments assumption. Behavior Genetics, 51 (3), 223-236. doi: 10.1007/s10519-021-10044-0
2021
Journal Article
Modeling parent-specific genetic nurture in families with missing parental genotypes: application to birthweight and BMI
Tubbs, Justin D., Hwang, Liang-Dar, Luong, Justin, Evans, David M. and Sham, Pak C. (2021). Modeling parent-specific genetic nurture in families with missing parental genotypes: application to birthweight and BMI. Behavior Genetics, 51 (3), 289-300. doi: 10.1007/s10519-020-10040-w
2021
Journal Article
Variants associated with HHIP expression have sexdifferential effects on lung function
Fawcett, Katherine A., Obeidat, Ma'en, Melbourne, Carl, Shrine, Nick, Guyatt, Anna L., John, Catherine, Luan, Jian'an, Richmond, Anne, Moksnes, Marta R., Granell, Raquel, Weiss, Stefan, Imboden, Medea, May-Wilson, Sebastian, Hysi, Pirro, Boutin, Thibaud S., Portas, Laura, Flexeder, Claudia, Harris, Sarah E., Wang, Carol A., Lyytikäinen, Leo-Pekka, Palviainen, Teemu, Foong, Rachel E., Keidel, Dirk, Minelli, Cosetta, Langenberg, Claudia, Bossé, Yohan, Berge, Maarten Van den, Sin, Don D., Hao, Ke ... Wain, Louise V. (2021). Variants associated with HHIP expression have sexdifferential effects on lung function. Wellcome Open Research, 5, 1-20. doi: 10.12688/WELLCOMEOPENRES.15846.2
2020
Journal Article
Investigating the causal effect of maternal vitamin B12 and folate levels on offspring birthweight
Moen, Gunn-Helen, Beaumont, Robin N., Grarup, Niels, Sommer, Christine, Shields, Beverley M., Lawlor, Deborah A., Freathy, Rachel M., Evans, David M. and Warrington, Nicole M. (2020). Investigating the causal effect of maternal vitamin B12 and folate levels on offspring birthweight. International Journal of Epidemiology, 50 (1), 179-189. doi: 10.1093/ije/dyaa256
2020
Journal Article
A cautionary note on using Mendelian randomization to examine the Barker hypothesis and Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD)
D'Urso, Shannon, Wang, Geng, Hwang, Liang-Dar, Moen, Gunn-Helen, Warrington, Nicole M. and Evans, David M. (2020). A cautionary note on using Mendelian randomization to examine the Barker hypothesis and Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD). Journal of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease, 12 (5) PII S2040174420001105, 1-6. doi: 10.1017/S2040174420001105
2020
Journal Article
Avoiding dynastic, assortative mating, and population stratification biases in Mendelian randomization through within-family analyses
Brumpton, Ben, Sanderson, Eleanor, Heilbron, Karl, Hartwig, Fernando Pires, Harrison, Sean, Vie, Gunnhild Åberge, Cho, Yoonsu, Howe, Laura D., Hughes, Amanda, Boomsma, Dorret I., Havdahl, Alexandra, Hopper, John, Neale, Michael, Nivard, Michel G., Pedersen, Nancy L., Reynolds, Chandra A., Tucker-Drob, Elliot M., Grotzinger, Andrew, Howe, Laurence, Morris, Tim, Li, Shuai, Brumpton, Ben, Sanderson, Eleanor, Heilbron, Karl, Hartwig, Fernando Pires, Harrison, Sean, Vie, Gunnhild Åberge, Cho, Yoonsu, Howe, Laura D. ... Davies, Neil M. (2020). Avoiding dynastic, assortative mating, and population stratification biases in Mendelian randomization through within-family analyses. Nature Communications, 11 (1) 3519, 3519. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-17117-4
2020
Conference Publication
Do maternal intrauterine environmental influences that lower offspring birthweight causally increase offspring cardiometabolic risk factors in later life? A Mendelian randomization study of 45,849 genotyped parent offspring pairs in the HUNT study using the OpenMx software
Moen, Gunn-Helen, Brumpton, Ben, Willer, Cristen, Asvold, Bjorn Olav, Birkeland, Kare, Neale, Michael C., Freathy, Rachel M., Smith, George Davey, Lawlor, Deborah A., Kirkpatrick, Robert M., Warrington, Nicole M. and Evans, David M. (2020). Do maternal intrauterine environmental influences that lower offspring birthweight causally increase offspring cardiometabolic risk factors in later life? A Mendelian randomization study of 45,849 genotyped parent offspring pairs in the HUNT study using the OpenMx software. 50th Annual Meeting of the Behavior-Genetics-Association (BGA), Electr Network, Jun 26, 2020. NEW YORK: SPRINGER.
2020
Journal Article
Mendelian randomization study of maternal influences on birthweight and future cardiometabolic risk in the HUNT cohort
Moen, Gunn-Helen, Brumpton, Ben, Willer, Cristen, Åsvold, Bjørn Olav, Birkeland, Kåre I., Wang, Geng, Neale, Michael C., Freathy, Rachel M., Smith, George Davey, Lawlor, Deborah A., Kirkpatrick, Robert M., Warrington, Nicole M. and Evans, David M. (2020). Mendelian randomization study of maternal influences on birthweight and future cardiometabolic risk in the HUNT cohort. Nature Communications, 11 (1) 5404, 5404. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-19257-z
2020
Journal Article
Estimating indirect parental genetic effects on offspring phenotypes using virtual parental genotypes derived from sibling and half sibling pairs
Hwang, Liang-Dar, Tubbs, Justin D., Luong, Justin, Lundberg, Mischa, Moen, Gunn-Helen, Wang, Geng, Warrington, Nicole M., Sham, Pak C., Cuellar-Partida, Gabriel and Evans, David M. (2020). Estimating indirect parental genetic effects on offspring phenotypes using virtual parental genotypes derived from sibling and half sibling pairs. PLoS Genetics, 16 (10) e1009154, e1009154. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1009154
2020
Journal Article
The Boulder Workshop Question Box
Evans, David M. (2020). The Boulder Workshop Question Box. Behavior Genetics, 51 (3), 181-190. doi: 10.1007/s10519-020-10022-y
2020
Journal Article
Genome-wide association study identifies 48 common genetic variants associated with handedness
Cuellar-Partida, Gabriel, Tung, Joyce Y., Eriksson, Nicholas, Albrecht, Eva, Aliev, Fazil, Andreassen, Ole A., Barroso, Inês, Beckmann, Jacques S., Boks, Marco P., Boomsma, Dorret I., Boyd, Heather A., Breteler, Monique M. B., Campbell, Harry, Chasman, Daniel I., Cherkas, Lynn F., Davies, Gail, de Geus, Eco J. C., Deary, Ian J., Deloukas, Panos, Dick, Danielle M., Duffy, David L., Eriksson, Johan G., Esko, Tõnu, Feenstra, Bjarke, Geller, Frank, Gieger, Christian, Giegling, Ina, Gordon, Scott D., Han, Jiali ... Medland, Sarah E. (2020). Genome-wide association study identifies 48 common genetic variants associated with handedness. Nature Human Behaviour, 5 (1), 59-70. doi: 10.1038/s41562-020-00956-y
2020
Journal Article
Plasma cortisol, aldosterone, and ascorbic acid concentrations in patients with septic shock do not predict treatment effect of hydrocortisone on mortality. A nested cohort study
Cohen, Jeremy, Bellomo, Rinaldo, Billot, Laurent, Burrell, Louise M., Evans, David M., Finfer, Simon, Hammond, Naomi E., Li, Qiang, Liu, David, McArthur, Colin, McWhinney, Brett, Moore, John, Myburgh, John, Peake, Sandra, Pretorius, Carel, Rajbhandari, Dorrilyn, Rhodes, Andrew, Saxena, Manoj, Ungerer, Jacobus P. J., Young, Morag J. and Venkatesh, Balasubramanian (2020). Plasma cortisol, aldosterone, and ascorbic acid concentrations in patients with septic shock do not predict treatment effect of hydrocortisone on mortality. A nested cohort study. American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, 202 (5), 700-707. doi: 10.1164/rccm.202002-0281OC
2020
Journal Article
Tasting as a social practice: a methodological experiment in making taste public
Jackson, Peter, Evans, David, Truninger, Monica, Baptista, Joao and Nunes, Nadia Carvalho (2020). Tasting as a social practice: a methodological experiment in making taste public. Social & Cultural Geography, 23 (5), 739-756. doi: 10.1080/14649365.2020.1809013
2020
Journal Article
Septic shock: a genomewide association study and polygenic risk score analysis
D'Urso, Shannon, Rajbhandari, Dorrilyn, Peach, Elizabeth, De Guzman, Erika, Li, Qiang, Medland, Sarah E., Gordon, Scott D., Martin, Nicholas G., Ligthart, Symen, Brown, Matthew A., Powell, Joseph, McArthur, Colin, Rhodes, Andrew, Meyer, Jason, Finfer, Simon, Myburgh, John, Blumenthal, Antje, Cohen, Jeremy, Venkatesh, Balasubramanian, Cuellar-Partida, Gabriel and Evans, David M. (2020). Septic shock: a genomewide association study and polygenic risk score analysis. Twin Research and Human Genetics, 23 (4) PII S1832427420000602, 204-213. doi: 10.1017/thg.2020.60
2020
Journal Article
Development of a polygenic risk score to improve screening for fracture risk: a genetic risk prediction study
Forgetta, Vincenzo, Keller-Baruch, Julyan, Forest, Marie, Durand, Audrey, Bhatnagar, Sahir, Kemp, John P., Nethander, Maria, Evans, Daniel, Morris, John A., Kiel, Douglas P., Rivadeneira, Fernando, Johansson, Helena, Harvey, Nicholas C., Mellström, Dan, Karlsson, Magnus, Cooper, Cyrus, Evans, David M., Clarke, Robert, Kanis, John A., Orwoll, Eric, McCloskey, Eugene V., Ohlsson, Claes, Pineau, Joelle, Leslie, William D., Greenwood, Celia M. T. and Richards, J. Brent (2020). Development of a polygenic risk score to improve screening for fracture risk: a genetic risk prediction study. PLOS Medicine, 17 (7) e1003152, e1003152. doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1003152
2020
Journal Article
RSPO3 impacts body fat distribution and regulates adipose cell biology in vitro
Loh, Nellie Y., Minchin, James E. N., Pinnick, Katherine E., Verma, Manu, Todorčević, Marijana, Denton, Nathan, Moustafa, Julia El-Sayed, Kemp, John P., Gregson, Celia L., Evans, David M., Neville, Matt J., Small, Kerrin S., McCarthy, Mark I., Mahajan, Anubha, Rawls, John F., Karpe, Fredrik and Christodoulides, Constantinos (2020). RSPO3 impacts body fat distribution and regulates adipose cell biology in vitro. Nature Communications, 11 (1) 2797, 1-15. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-16592-z
2020
Journal Article
Proxy gene-by-environment Mendelian randomization for assessing causal effects of maternal exposures on offspring outcomes
Hwang, Liang-Dar and Evans, David M. (2020). Proxy gene-by-environment Mendelian randomization for assessing causal effects of maternal exposures on offspring outcomes. International Journal of Epidemiology, 49 (4), 1218-1220. doi: 10.1093/ije/dyaa069
Funding
Current funding
Supervision
Availability
- Professor David Evans is:
- Available for supervision
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Available projects
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Sometimes Correlation does Equal Causation: Developing Statistical Methods to Determine Causality Using Genetic Data
There is a well-known mantra that correlation does not necessarily equal causation. This is why randomized controlled trials in which participants are physically randomized into treatment and placebo groups are the gold standard for assessing causality in epidemiological investigations. However, what is less appreciated is that strong evidence for causality can sometimes be obtained using observational data only. In particular, genotypes are randomly transmitted from parents to their offspring independent of the environment and other confounding factors, meaning that genotypes associated with particular traits can be used like natural “randomized controlled trials” to examine whether these traits causally affect risk of disease.
The aim of this PhD project is to develop statistical methods to assess causality using observational data alone. The successful candidate will gain experience across a wide range of advanced statistical genetics methodologies including Mendelian randomization (a way of using genetic variants to investigate putatively causal relationships), structural equation modelling, genome-wide association analysis (GWAS), genetic restricted maximum likelihood (G-REML) analysis of genome-wide data which can be used to partition variation in phenotypes into genetic and environmental sources of variation, and instrumental variables analysis (using natural “experiments” to obtain information on causality from observational data). The candidate will apply the new statistical methods that they develop to large genetically informative datasets like the UK Biobank (500,000 individuals with genome-wide SNP data).
Supervision history
Current supervision
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Doctor Philosophy
Harnessing Genetically Informative Within-Family Research Designs for Deeper Insights into the Intrauterine Developmental Period and Downstream Effects on Offspring Neurodevelopmental Outcomes
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Daniel Hwang, Dr Gunn-Helen Moen
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Doctor Philosophy
Multi-omic Approaches to Understanding Septic Shock
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Daniel Hwang
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Doctor Philosophy
Developing and Applying Statistical Genetics Methods to Elucidate the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Nicole Warrington
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Doctor Philosophy
Investigating the association between maternal and fetal HLA-KIR genotypes and offspring birth weight
Principal Advisor
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Doctor Philosophy
Understanding the genetic epidemiology of women's reproductive health
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Gunn-Helen Moen
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Doctor Philosophy
Using multi-omics approaches to characterise determinants of early growth trajectories and their consequences on later life health
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Honorary Professor Jake Gratten, Dr Nicole Warrington
Completed supervision
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2023
Doctor Philosophy
Using Genetics to Understand the Relationship Between the Intrauterine Environment and Future Offspring Cardiometabolic Risk
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Nicole Warrington
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2019
Doctor Philosophy
Detecting and Quantifying the Effect of Assortative mating and Maternal Effects on Statistical Genetics Analyses
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Nicole Warrington
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Media
Enquiries
Contact Professor David Evans directly for media enquiries about:
- Genetics
- Genome-wide association
- Mendelian randomization
- Twin Studies
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