avatar

Yuxuan Wang

Postdoctoral Researcher
Broad Institute


Cited by 556

About

I am currently a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Broad Institute, working with Dr. Pradeep Natarajan. My research focuses on developing and applying statistical methods to elucidate the genetic architecture of complex traits, with a particular emphasis on cardiometabolic and plasma lipid-related outcomes. I conduct large-scale GWAS meta-analyses and rare-variant association tests to identify both common and rare genetic variations that contribute to disease risk. Methodologically, I am interested in developing Bayesian frameworks to quantify the replicability of pleiotropic loci across studies and populations. I am an active member of the NHLBI Trans-Omics for Precision Medicine (TOPMed) Program and the Global Lipids Genetics Consortium (GLGC).

I received my PhD in Biostatistics from Boston University, advised by Dr. Ching-Ti Liu and Dr. Gina Peloso. Prior to that, I earned my master’s degree in Biostatistics from Yale University, where I was advised by Dr. Denise Esserman and Dr. Hongyu Zhao.

I completed my undergraduate studies in Applied Biology with Biotechnology at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, graduating with First Class Honours.

GWAS Rare Variants Bayesian Methods Cardiometabolic Traits TOPMed · GLGC

News

Nov. 2025 I am thrilled to share that I successfully defended my thesis today!
Jan. 2025 We're overjoyed to share that our family has grown — a little one joined us recently, happy and healthy.
May. 2024 Yuxuan will join Genentech as a summer intern, working with Dr. Christian Benner and Dr. Anubha Mahajan on statistical fine-mapping methods.
Oct. 2023 Our paper "Rare variants in long non-coding RNAs are associated with blood lipid levels in the TOPMed whole-genome sequencing study" is published by American Journal of Human Genetics.
Dec. 2022 Our paper "Implicating genes, pleiotropy and sexual dimorphism at blood lipid loci through multiancestry meta-analysis" is published by Genome Biology.

Selected Publications

  1. Rare variants in long non-coding RNAs are associated with blood lipid levels in the TOPMed whole-genome sequencing study AJHG
    Rare variants in long non-coding RNAs are associated with blood lipid levels in the TOPMed whole-genome sequencing study
    Yuxuan Wang, Margaret Sunitha Selvaraj, Xihao Li, ..., Xihong Lin, Pradeep Natarajan, Gina M. Peloso* (*Corresponding authors)
    American Journal of Human Genetics, 2023.
    Website
  2. Implicating genes, pleiotropy, and sexual dimorphism at blood lipid loci through multi-ancestry meta-analysis Genome Biology
    Implicating genes, pleiotropy, and sexual dimorphism at blood lipid loci through multi-ancestry meta-analysis
    Stavroula Kanoni†, Sarah E. Graham†, Yuxuan Wang†, Ida Surakka†, Shweta Ramdas†, Xiang Zhu†, ..., Cristen J. Willer*, Themistocles L. Assimes and Gina M. Peloso* († Co-first authors, *Corresponding authors)
    Genome Biology, 2022.
    Code Website
  3. A multi-layer functional genomic analysis to understand noncoding genetic variation in lipids AJHG
    A multi-layer functional genomic analysis to understand noncoding genetic variation in lipids
    Shweta Ramdas†, Jonathan Judd†, Sarah E. Graham†, Stavroula Kanoni†, Yuxuan Wang†, ..., Cristen J. Willer, Xiang Zhu*, Christopher D. Brown* († Co-first authors, *Corresponding authors)
    American Journal of Human Genetics, 2022.
    Website
  4. A comparison of analytical strategies for cluster randomized trials with survival outcomes in the presence of competing risks Stat. Methods Med. Res.
    A comparison of analytical strategies for cluster randomized trials with survival outcomes in the presence of competing risks
    Fan Li*, Wenhan Lu, Yuxuan Wang, Zehua Pan, Erich J Greene, Guanqun Meng, Can Meng, Ondrej Blaha, Yize Zhao, Peter Peduzzi, Denise Esserman († Co-first authors, *Corresponding authors)
    Statistical Methods in Medical Research, 2022.
    Code Website

Presentations

RePlei: Replication of pleiotropic loci with GWAS summary statistics

Assessing Fine-Mapping Methods to Identify Causal Variants at the APOE Locus in Alzheimer’s Disease

Impact of GWAS Meta-analysis Heterogeneity on Polygenic Prediction Accuracy

Rare Variants in Long Non-coding RNAs are Associated with Blood Lipid Levels in the TOPMed Whole Genome Sequencing Study

Prioritizing Genes from Genome-wide Meta-analyses of Blood Lipid Levels

Integrating Multiple Gene Prioritization Methods to Identify Causal Genes

Comparison of Methods to Analyze Clustered Time-to-Event Data with Competing Risks

Teaching

Teaching Assistant, Boston University

Course Coordinator, Boston University