Dr. Thornton is Associate Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Washington (UW) and an Affiliate Investigator at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Dr. Thornton's research involves the development and application of statistical methods for the analysis of large-scale genomic data for the identification of genetic variants that influence complex diseases and quantitative traits. Currently, Dr. Thornton's collaborative research is largely focused on using statistical methods to identify novel genetic variants for complex traits in ancestrally diverse populations, including underrepresented minority populations in the U.S., including African Americans, Latinos, and American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) populations. Dr. Thornton currently serves as a lead statistician and co-investigator for Hispanic Community Health Study (HCHS)/Study of Latinos (SOL), and this cohort was recently included in the multi-cohort Population Architecture using Genomics and Epidemiology (PAGE) II study.
Recent Publications
- Rajagopal, VM, Ziyatdinov, A, Joseph, T, Ayer, A, Ahmed, M, Mbatchou, J, Zou, Y, Averitt, AJ, Banerjee, N, Cantor, M et al.. Rare coding variants in CHRNB3 associate with reduced daily cigarette smoking across ancestries. Nat Commun 2026; 17 (1): . PubMed PMID:41735279 PubMed Central PMC12932796.
- Temple, SD, Chapman, NH, Choi, SH, DeStefano, AL, Thornton, TA, Wijsman, EM, Blue, EE. Multiple-testing corrections in case-control studies using identity-by-descent segments. Am J Hum Genet 2026; : . PubMed PMID:41709460 .
- Van Buren, E, Zhang, Y, Li, X, Selvaraj, MS, Li, Z, Zhou, H, Palmer, ND, Arnett, DK, Blangero, J, Boerwinkle, E et al.. cellSTAAR: incorporating single-cell-sequencing-based functional data to boost power in rare variant association testing of noncoding regions. Nat Methods 2026; 23 (2): 338-349. PubMed PMID:41476111 .
- Kim, SY, Kim, J, Ramos, M, Haley, J, Smelser, D, Rao, HS, Mirshahi, UL, Nathanson, KL, Graubard, BI, Katki, HA et al.. Genomic Ascertainment of CHEK2-Related Cancer Predisposition. JAMA Netw Open 2025; 8 (12): e2549730. PubMed PMID:41396600 PubMed Central PMC12706675.
- Selvaraj, MS, Li, X, Li, Z, Van Buren, E, Haidermota, S, Postupaka, D, Hornsby, W, Bis, JC, Brody, JA, Cade, BE et al.. Whole genome sequence analysis of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol across 246 K individuals. Genome Biol 2025; 26 (1): 273. PubMed PMID:40926209 PubMed Central PMC12418676.
- Kjær, J, Milling, L, Brøchner, AC, Lippert, F, Blomberg, SN, Christensen, HC, Holgate, R, Morrison, LJ, Bakhsh, A, Mikkelsen, S et al.. Prehospital cardiac arrest resuscitation practices differ around the globe. Resusc Plus 2025; 25 : 101017. PubMed PMID:40777886 PubMed Central PMC12329125.
- Temple, SD, Chapman, NH, Choi, SH, DeStefano, AL, Thornton, TA, Wijsman, EM, Blue, EE. Multiple-testing corrections in case-control studies using identity-by-descent segments. bioRxiv 2025; : . PubMed PMID:40672175 PubMed Central PMC12265659.
- Buonaiuto, S, Marsico, F, Mohammed, A, Chinthala, LK, Amos-Abanyie, EK, Regeneron Genetics Center, Prins, P, Mozhui, K, Rooney, RJ, Williams, RW et al.. Insights from the Biorepository and Integrative Genomics pediatric resource. Nat Commun 2025; 16 (1): 4750. PubMed PMID:40404628 PubMed Central PMC12098674.
- Choi, SH, Jurgens, SJ, Xiao, L, Hill, MC, Haggerty, CM, Sveinbjörnsson, G, Morrill, VN, Marston, NA, Weng, LC, Pirruccello, JP et al.. Sequencing in over 50,000 cases identifies coding and structural variation underlying atrial fibrillation risk. Nat Genet 2025; 57 (3): 548-562. PubMed PMID:40050430 .
- Li, X, Chen, H, Selvaraj, MS, Van Buren, E, Zhou, H, Wang, Y, Sun, R, McCaw, ZR, Yu, Z, Jiang, MZ et al.. A statistical framework for multi-trait rare variant analysis in large-scale whole-genome sequencing studies. Nat Comput Sci 2025; 5 (2): 125-143. PubMed PMID:39920506 PubMed Central PMC11981678.
