
WILLIAM S. BUSH, PHD, MS
Associate Director for Bioinformatics Research
William S. Bush, PhD, MS, is Associate Professor in the Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences and the Cleveland Institute for Computational Biology at Case Western Reserve University. Dr. Bush received his PhD at Vanderbilt University in Human Genetics in 2008 and then continued as a post-doctoral fellow in the Neurogenomics Training Program at Vanderbilt. Dr. Bush was recently named a Mt. Sinai Health Care Foundation Scholar. As a human geneticist and bioinformatician, Dr. Bush’s research interests include understanding the functional impact of genetic variation, developing statistical and bioinformatics approaches for integrating functional genomics knowledge into genetic analysis, and the use of electronic medical records for translational research.
Featured Publications

Cross-cancer pleiotropic analysis of endometrial cancer: PAGE and E2C2 consortia.
Setiawan VW, Schumacher F, Prescott J, Haessler J, Malinowski J, Wentzensen N, Yang H, Chanock S, Brinton L, Hartge P, Lissowska J, Park SL, Cheng I, Bush WS, Crawford DC, Ursin G, Horn-Ross P, Bernstein L, Lu L, Risch H, Yu H, Sakoda LC, Doherty J, Chen C, Jackson R, Yasmeen S, Cote M, Kocarnik […]

Antiepileptic activity of preferential inhibitors of persistent sodium current.
Anderson LL, Thompson CH, Hawkins NA, Nath RD, Petersohn AA, Rajamani S, Bush WS, Frankel WN, Vanoye CG, Kearney JA, George AL,. Evidence from basic neurophysiology and molecular genetics has implicated persistent sodium current conducted by voltage-gated sodium (NaV ) channels as a contributor to the pathogenesis of epilepsy. Many antiepileptic drugs target NaV channels […]

eMERGEing progress in genomics-the first seven years.
Crawford DC, Crosslin DR, Tromp G, Kullo IJ, Kuivaniemi H, Hayes MG, Denny JC, Bush WS, Haines JL, Roden DM, McCarty CA, Jarvik GP, Ritchie MD,. The electronic MEdical Records & GEnomics (eMERGE) network was established in 2007 by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in part […]

Automated quantification of pancreatic β-cell mass.
Golson ML, Bush WS, Brissova M,. β-Cell mass is a parameter commonly measured in studies of islet biology and diabetes. However, the rigorous quantification of pancreatic β-cell mass using conventional histological methods is a time-consuming process. Rapidly evolving virtual slide technology with high-resolution slide scanners and newly developed image analysis tools has the potential to […]

Replication of associations between GWAS SNPs and melanoma risk in the Population Architecture Using Genomics and Epidemiology (PAGE) Study.
Kocarnik JM, Park SL, Han J, Dumitrescu L, Cheng I, Wilkens LR, Schumacher FR, Kolonel L, Carlson CS, Crawford DC, Goodloe RJ, Dilks H, Baker P, Richardson D, Ambite JL, Song F, Quresh AA, Zhang M, Duggan D, Hutter C, Hindorff LA, Bush WS, Kooperberg C, Le Marchand L, Peters U,.
Recent Publications
- Tejeda, M, Farrell, J, Zhu, C, Wetzler, L, Lunetta, KL, Bush, WS, Martin, ER, Wang, LS, Schellenberg, GD, Pericak-Vance, MA et al.. DNA from multiple viral species is associated with Alzheimer's disease risk. Alzheimers Dement 2023; : . PubMed PMID:37578203 .
- Walters, S, Contreras, AG, Eissman, JM, Mukherjee, S, Lee, ML, Choi, SE, Scollard, P, Trittschuh, EH, Mez, JB, Bush, WS et al.. Associations of Sex, Race, and Apolipoprotein E Alleles With Multiple Domains of Cognition Among Older Adults. JAMA Neurol 2023; 80 (9): 929-939. PubMed PMID:37459083 PubMed Central PMC10352930.
- Grunin, M, Palmer, E, de Jong, S, Jin, B, Rinker, D, Moth, C, Capra, JA, Haines, JL, Bush, WS, den Hollander, AI et al.. Integrating Computational Approaches to Predict the Effect of Genetic Variants on Protein Stability in Retinal Degenerative Disease. Adv Exp Med Biol 2023; 1415 : 157-163. PubMed PMID:37440029 .
- Li, D, Farrell, JJ, Mez, J, Martin, ER, Bush, WS, Ruiz, A, Boada, M, de Rojas, I, Mayeux, R, Haines, JL et al.. Novel loci for Alzheimer's disease identified by a genome-wide association study in Ashkenazi Jews. Alzheimers Dement 2023; : . PubMed PMID:37260021 .
- Bai, H, Naj, AC, Benchek, P, Dumitrescu, L, Hohman, T, Hamilton-Nelson, K, Kallianpur, AR, Griswold, AJ, Vardarajan, B, Martin, ER et al.. A haptoglobin (HP) structural variant alters the effect of APOE alleles on Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimers Dement 2023; : . PubMed PMID:37051669 .
- McHenry, ML, Simmons, J, Hong, H, Malone, LL, Mayanja-Kizza, H, Bush, WS, Boom, WH, Hawn, TR, Williams, SM, Stein, CM et al.. Tuberculosis severity associates with variants and eQTLs related to vascular biology and infection-induced inflammation. PLoS Genet 2023; 19 (3): e1010387. PubMed PMID:36972313 PubMed Central PMC10079228.
- Bai, H, Zhang, X, Bush, WS. Pharmacogenomic and Statistical Analysis. Methods Mol Biol 2023; 2629 : 305-330. PubMed PMID:36929083 .
- Chen, F, Madduri, RK, Rodriguez, AA, Darst, BF, Chou, A, Sheng, X, Wang, A, Shen, J, Saunders, EJ, Rhie, SK et al.. Evidence of Novel Susceptibility Variants for Prostate Cancer and a Multiancestry Polygenic Risk Score Associated with Aggressive Disease in Men of African Ancestry. Eur Urol 2023; 84 (1): 13-21. PubMed PMID:36872133 PubMed Central PMC10424812.
- Okwuegbuna, OK, Kaur, H, Jennifer, I, Bush, WS, Bharti, A, Umlauf, A, Ellis, RJ, Franklin, DR, Heaton, RK, McCutchan, JA et al.. Anemia and Erythrocyte Indices Are Associated With Neurocognitive Performance Across Multiple Ability Domains in Adults With HIV. J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr 2023; 92 (5): 414-421. PubMed PMID:36580636 PubMed Central PMC10006328.
- Rajabli, F, Tosto, G, Hamilton-Nelson, KL, Kunkle, BW, Vardarajan, BN, Naj, A, Whitehead, PG, Gardner, OK, Bush, WS, Sariya, S et al.. Admixture mapping identifies novel Alzheimer's disease risk regions in African Americans. Alzheimers Dement 2023; 19 (6): 2538-2548. PubMed PMID:36539198 PubMed Central PMC10272044.