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Dr Sheila Barton BSc, PGCE, MSc, PhD

Senior Statistician

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Dr Sheila Barton is Senior Statistician within Medicine at the University of Southampton.

Sheila Barton was appointed as a Senior Statistician, specialising in the analysis of genetic and epigenetic data, at the Medical Research Council Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit (University of Southampton) in August 2010. Having graduated from the University of Bristol and subsequently completed a Post Graduate Certificate in Education in Secondary Mathematics, she then taught Mathematics (ages 11 to 18) across the full age and ability range including A-Level Statistics.

She left teaching to obtain an MSc in Statistics with Applications in Medicine from the University of Southampton in 2000. She began working as a statistician in the School of Medicine in October 2000, initially for the Infection, Inflammation and Immunity division in the area of asthma genetics.

She obtained a PhD in May 2010 from the University of London entitled ‘Statistical analysis of proteomic profile data generated by tandem mass spectrometry’. She has also worked as a Senior Statistician for the Research and Development Support Unit (Southampton) and, more recently, for the University of Southampton Clinical Trials Unit.

Qualifications

BSc Chemistry, University of Bristol (1980)
PGCE Mathematics, West Sussex Institute of Higher Education (1992)
MSc Statistics with Applications in Medicine, University of Southampton (2000)
PhD Analysis of Proteomic Data, University of London (2010)

Appointments held

MRC Environmental Epidemiology Unit, University of Southampton: Senior Statistician 2010-present

Faculty of Medicine, University of Southampton: Statistician/ Senior Statistician 2000-2010

Littlehampton Community School, West Sussex: Teacher of Mathematics 1992-1999

ICI Paints Division, Slough: Research Scientist 1980-1982

Research

Responsibilities

Publications

Teaching

Contact

Research interests

Sheila’s current research is mainly focused on analysis strategies for genetic and epigenetic data. This includes analyses involving relatively small numbers of genomic locations and also analyses involving many thousands of genomic locations measured simultaneously using microarrays.

She is keen to improve current methodology for the analysis of genomic data and communicating these improvements in a way that can be easily understood by the wider genomics community. This is evidenced by her recent paper ‘Correction of unexpected distributions of P values from analysis of whole genome arrays by rectifying violation of statistical assumptions’ published in BMC Genomics.

The main purpose of improving analysis strategies is to enhance discovery of associations between genetic or epigenetic measurements and subsequent phenotype. Current research in the children of the Southampton Women’s Survey is aimed at searching for associations between epigenetic methylation measurements taken at various locations across the genome, and phenotypes such as neuro-cognitive, body composition and asthma and allergy phenotypes.

In general data resulting from measuring methylation cannot be considered to be Normally distributed or have a Normal error distribution. This leads to many interesting statistical challenges which we are attempting to address with input from our collaborators in the Epigen Academic Consortium (University of Auckland and AgResearch New Zealand, and the Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences and the National University of Singapore).

Academic unit(s)

Human Development and Health Academic Units

Postgraduate student supervision

Faye Turner, MSc (2001)
Louise Dent, MSc (2002)
Nicola Williams, MSc (2002)
Zahra Abdulla, Diploma (2003)
Zahreen Gopee, MSc (2006)
Jake Kashani, MSc (2007)
Michelle Hamill, MSc (2008)
Nazatulshima Hassan, MSc (2009)
Camille Parsons, MSc (2010)
Lucy Davies, MSc (2011)
Abby Fuller, MSc (2012)
Philip Titcombe, MSc (2013)

University of Southampton collaboration

Sheila is a co-investigator with Dr. John Tobias, University of Bristol, on the Meta Analysis of Illumina Golden Gate methylation data in birth cohorts

International responsibilities/collaborations

Sheila is the lead UK statistician for the Epigen Academic Consortium; comprising the UK Medical Research Council, University of Auckland, AgResearch, National University of Singapore. Epigen Academic Consortium.

She is also named as an Overseas Collaborator in Biostatistics on the Singapore National Medical Research Council Translational Clinical Research grant, with Sir Peter Gluckman and Prof Chong Yap Seng.

Sheila is the Southampton Women’s Survey Biostatistician for the Early Growth Genetics (EGG) International Consortium.

She has also contributed as an advisory trial statistician to the Predictive Biomarkers of Allergy in Chinese Infants Trial, (Sir Peter Gluckman and Dr Joanna Holbrook, Singapore Institute for Clinial Sciences)

Articles

Lillycrop, K., Murray, R., Cheong, C., Teh, A. L., Clarke-Harris, R., Barton, S., ... Godfrey, K. M. (2017). ANRIL promoter DNA methylation: a perinatal marker for later adposity. EBioMedicine, 19, 60-72. DOI: 10.1016/j.ebiom.2017.03.037

Barton, S., Ngo, S., Costello, P., Garratt, E., El-Heis, S., Antoun, E., ... EpiGen Consortium (2017). DNA methylation of Th2 lineage determination genes at birth is associated with allergic outcomes in childhood. Clinical and Experimental Allergy.

Curtis, E. M., Murray, R., Titcombe, P., Cook, E., Clarke-Harris, R., Costello, P., ... Harvey, N. C. (2017). Perinatal DNA methylation at CDKN2A is associated with offspring bone mass:: Findings from the Southampton Women's Survey. Journal of Bone and Mineral Research. DOI: 10.1002/jbmr.3153

Moon, R. J., Harvey, N. C., Cooper, C., D'angelo, S., Curtis, E. M., Crozier, S. R., ... the MAVIDOS Trial Group (2017). Response to antenatal cholecalciferol supplementation is associated with common vitamin D genetic variants. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, 102(8), 2941-2949. DOI: 10.1210/jc.2017-00682

Lillycrop, K. A., Costello, P. M., Teh, A. L., Murray, R. J., Clarke-Harris, R., Barton, S. J., ... Godfrey, K. M. (2016). Association between perinatal methylation of the neuronal differentiation regular HES1 and later childhood neurocognitive function and behaviour. International Journal of Epidemiology, 1-48.

Murray, R., Bryant, J., Titcombe, P., Barton, S., Inskip, H., Harvey, N., ... Godfrey, K. (2016). DNA methylation at birth within the promoter of ANRIL predicts markers of cardiovascular risk at 9 years. Clinical Epigenetics, 8(90), 1-6. DOI: 10.1186/s13148-016-0259-5

Lin, X., Barton, S., & Holbrook, J. (2016). How to make DNA methylome wide association studies more powerful. Epigenomics, 1-13. DOI: 10.2217/epi-2016-0017

Dizier, M-H., Nadif, R., Margaritte-Jeannin, P., Barton, S. J., Sarnowski, C., Gagné-Ouellet, V., ... Demenais, F. (2016). Interaction between the DNAH9 gene and early smoke exposure in bronchial hyperresponsiveness. European Respiratory Journal, 47(4), 1072-1081. DOI: 10.1183/13993003.00849-2015

Barton, S. J., Mosquera, M., Cleal, J. K., Fuller, A. S., Crozier, S. R., Cooper, C., ... Godfrey, K. M. (2016). Relation of FTO gene variations to fetal growth trajectories: findings from the Southampton Women's survey. Placenta, 38, 100-106. DOI: 10.1016/j.placenta.2015.12.015

van der Valk, R. J. P., Kreiner-Moller, E., Kooijman, M. N., Guxens, M., Stergiakouli, E., Saaf, A., ... Jaddoe, V. W. V. (2015). A novel common variant in DCST2 is associated with length in early life and height in adulthood. Human Molecular Genetics, 24(4), 1155-1168. DOI: 10.1093/hmg/ddu510

Qi, Q., Downer, M. K., Kilpeläinen, T. O., Taal, H. R., Barton, S. J., Ntalla, I., ... Qi, L. (2015). Dietary intake, FTO genetic variants and adiposity: a combined analysis of over 16,000 children and adolescents. Diabetes, 67(7), 2467-2476. DOI: 10.2337/db14-1629

Huang, R. C., Garratt, E. S., Pan, H., Wu, Y., Davies, E. A., Barton, S. J., ... Lillycrop, K. A. (2015). Genome-wide methylation analysis identifies differently methylated CpG loci associated with severe obesity in childhood. Epigenetics, 10(11), 995-1005. DOI: 10.1080/15592294.2015.1080411

Dizier, M. H., Nadif, R., Margaritte-Jeannin, P., Barton, S. J., Sarnowski, C., Gagne-Ouellet, V., ... Demanais, F. (2015). Interaction between DNAH9 gene and early smoke exposure on bronchial hyper-responsiveness. European Respiratory Journal, 1-26.

Paternoster, L., Standl, M., Waage, J., Baurecht, H., Hotze, M., Strachan, D. P., ... Weidinger, S. (2015). Letter. Multi-ancestry genome-wide association study of 21,000 cases and 95,000 controls identifies new risk loci for atopic dermatitis. Nature Genetics, 47(12), 1449-1456. DOI: 10.1038/ng.3424

Cleal, J. K., Day, P. E. L., Simner, C. L., Barton, S. J., Mahon, P. A., Inskip, H. M., ... Harvey, N. C. (2015). Placental amino acid transport may be regulated by maternal vitamin D and vitamin D-binding protein: results from the Southampton Women’s Survey. British Journal of Nutrition. DOI: 10.1017/S0007114515001178

Abdelmotelb, A. M., Rose-Zerilli, M. J., Barton, S. J., Holgate, S. T., Walls, A. F., & Holloway, J. W. (2014). Alpha-tryptase gene variation is associated with levels of circulating IgE and lung function in asthma. Clinical & Experimental Allergy, 44(6), 822-830. DOI: 10.1111/cea.12259

Elks, C. E., Heude, B., de Zegher, F., Barton, S. J., Clement, K., Inskip, H. M., ... Ong, K. K. (2014). Associations between genetic obesity susceptibility and early postnatal fat and lean mass: an individual participant meta-analysis. JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, 168(12), 1122-1130. DOI: 10.1001/jamapediatrics.2014.1619

Teh, A. L., Pan, H., Chen, L., Ong, M-L., Dogra, S., Wong, J., ... Holbrook, J. D. (2014). The effect of genotype and in utero environment on interindividual variation in neonate DNA methylomes. Genome Research, 24(7), 1064-1074. DOI: 10.1101/gr.171439.113

Barton, S. J., Crozier, S. R., Lillycrop, K. A., Godfrey, K. M., & Inskip, H. M. (2013). Correction of unexpected distributions of P values from analysis of whole genome arrays by rectifying violation of statistical assumptions. BMC Genomics, 14, 161. DOI: 10.1186/1471-2164-14-161

Horikoshi, M., Yaghootkar, H., Mook-Kanamori, D. O., Sovio, U., Taal, H. R., Hennig, B. J., ... Freathy, R. M. (2013). New loci associated with birth weight identify genetic links between intrauterine growth and adult height and metabolism. Nature Genetics, 45(1), 76-82. DOI: 10.1038/ng.2477

Tulah, A. S., Beghé, B., Barton, S. J., Holloway, J. W., & Sayers, I. (2012). Leukotriene B4 receptor locus gene characterisation and association studies in asthma. BMC Medical Genetics, 13(1), 110. DOI: 10.1186/1471-2350-13-110

Pan, H., Chen, L., Dogra, S., Teh, A. L., Tan, J. H., Lim, Y. I., ... Holbrook, J. D. (2012). Measuring the methylome in clinical samples: improved processing of the Infinium Human Methylation 450 BeadChip Array. Epigenetics, 7(10), 1173-1187. DOI: 10.4161/epi.22102

Shaw, E. C., Hanby, A. M., Wheeler, K., Shaaban, A. M., Poller, D., Barton, S., ... Eccles, D. M. (2012). Observer agreement comparing the use of virtual slides with glass slides in the pathology review component of the POSH breast cancer cohort study. Journal of Clinical Pathology, 65(5), 403-408. DOI: 10.1136/jclinpath-2011-200369

Schauberger, E. M., Ewart, S. L., Arshad, S. H., Huebner, M., Karmaus, W., Holloway, J. W., ... Wills-Karp, M. (2011). Identification of ATPAF1 as a novel candidate gene for asthma in children. Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, 128(4), 753-760.e11. DOI: 10.1016/j.jaci.2011.04.058

Holloway, J. W., Barton, S. J., & Sayers, I. (2010). Atopy susceptibility and chromosome 19q13. Allergy, 65(6), 802-804. DOI: 10.1111/j.1398-9995.2009.02250.x

Nicholas, B. L., Skipp, P., Barton, S., Singh, D., Bagmane, D., Mould, R., ... Djukanovic, R. (2010). Identification of lipocalin and apolipoprotein A1 as biomarkers of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, 181(10), 1049-1060. DOI: 10.1164/rccm.200906-0857OC

Williamson, I., Benge, S., Barton, S., Petrou, S., Letley, L., Fasey, N., ... Little, P. (2009). A double-blind randomised placebo-controlled trial of topical intranasal corticosteroids in 4- to 11-year-old children with persistent bilateral otitis media with effusion in primary care. Health Technology Assessment, 13(37), 1-274. DOI: 10.3310/hta13370

Szczepankiewicz, A., Rose-Zerilli, M. J., Barton, S. J., Holgate, S. T., & Holloway, J. W. (2009). Association analysis of brain-derived neurotrophic factor gene polymorphisms in asthmatic families. International Archives of Allergy and Immunology, 149(4), 343-349. DOI: 10.1159/000205580

Rose-Zerilli, M. J., Barton, S. J., Henderson, A. J., Shaheen, S. O., & Holloway, J. W. (2009). Copy-number variation genotyping of GSTT1 and GSTM1 gene deletions by real-time PCR. Clinical Chemistry, 55(9), 1680-1685. DOI: 10.1373/clinchem.2008.120105

Koppelman, G. H., Meyers, D. A., Howard, T. D., Zheng, S. L., Hawkins, G. A., Ampleford, E. J., ... Postma, D. S. (2009). Identification of PCDH1 as a novel susceptibility gene for bronchial hyperresponsiveness. American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, 180(10), 929-935. DOI: 10.1164/rccm.200810-1621OC

Pappachan, J. V., Coulson, T. G., Child, N. J. A., Markham, D. J., Nour, S. M., Pulletz, M. C. K., ... Holloway, J. W. (2009). Mortality in adult intensive care patients with severe systemic inflammatory response symdroles is strongly associated with the hypoimmune TNF-238A polymorphism. Immunogenetics, 61(10), 657-662. DOI: 10.1007/s00251-009-0395-6

Barton, S. J., Koppelman, G. H., Vonk, J. M., Browning, C. A., Nolte, I. M., Stewart, C. E., ... Sayers, I. (2009). PLAUR polymorphisms are associated with asthma, PLAUR levels, and lung function decline. Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, 123(6), 1391-1400. DOI: 10.1016/j.jaci.2009.03.014

Williamson, I., Benge, S., Barton, S., Petrou, S., Letley, L., Fasey, N., ... Little, P. (2009). Topical intranasal corticosteroids in 4-11 year old children with persistent bilateral otitis media with effusion in primary care: double blind randomised placebo controlled trial. BMJ, 339(b4984), 1-8. DOI: 10.1136/bmj.b4984

Holloway, J. W., Barton, S. J., Holgate, S. T. ., Rose-Zerilli, M. J., & Sayers, I. (2008). The role of LTA4H and ALOX5AP polymorphism in asthma and allergy susceptibility. Allergy, 59(8), 1046-1053. DOI: 10.1111/j.1398-9995.2008.01667.x

Konstantinidis, A. K., Barton, S. J., Sayers, I., Yang, I. A., Lordan, J. L., Rorke, S., ... Holloway, J. W. (2007). Genetic association studies of interleukin-13 receptor alpha1 subunit gene polymorphisms in asthma and atopy. European Respiratory Journal, 30(1), 40-47. DOI: 10.1183/09031936.00025706

Barton, S. J., Richardson, S., Perkins, D. N., Bellahn, I., Bryant, T. N., & Whittaker, J. C. (2007). Using statistical models to identify factors that have a role in defining the abundance of ions produced by tandem MS. Analytical Chemistry, 79(15), 5601-5607. DOI: 10.1021/ac0700272

Burkart, K. M., Barton, S. J., Holloway, J. W., Yang, I. A., Cakebread, J. A., Cruikshank, W., ... O'Connor, G. T. (2006). Association of asthma with a functional promoter polymorphism in the IL16 gene. Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, 117(1), 86-91. DOI: 10.1016/j.jaci.2005.10.011

Hao, L., Sayers, I., Cakebread, J. A., Barton, S. J., Beghé, B., Holgate, S. T., ... Holloway, J. W. (2006). The cysteinyl-leukotriene type 1 receptor polymorphism 927T/C is associated with atopy severity but not with asthma. Clinical & Experimental Allergy, 36(6), 735-741. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2222.2006.02511.x

Yang, I. A., Holz, O., Jörres, R. A., Magnussen, H., Barton, S. J., Rodríguez, S., ... Holgate, S. T. (2005). Association of tumor necrosis factor-alpha polymorphisms and ozone-induced change in lung function. American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, 171(2), 171-176. DOI: 10.1164/rccm.200402-194OC

Beghé, B., Padoan, M., Moss, C. T., Barton, S. J., Holloway, J. W., Holgate, S. T., ... Mapp, C. E. (2004). Lack of association of HLA class I genes and TNFα-308 polymorphism in toluene diisocyanate-induced asthma. Allergy, 59(1), 61-64. DOI: 10.1046/j.1398-9995.2003.00352.x

Iwanaga, T., McEuen, A., Walls, A. F., Clough, J. B., Keith, T. P., Rorke, S., ... Holloway, J. W. (2004). Polymorphism of the mast cell chymase gene (CMA1) promoter region: lack of association with asthma but association with serum total immunoglobulin E levels in adult atopic dermatitis. Clinical & Experimental Allergy, 34(7), 1037-1042. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2222.2004.02000.x

Yang, I. A., Barton, S. J., Rorke, S., Cakebread, J. A., Keith, T. P., Clough, J. B., ... Holloway, J. W. (2004). Toll-like receptor 4 polymorphism and severity of atopy in asthmatics. Genes and Immunity, 5(1), 41-45. DOI: 10.1038/sj.gene.6364037

Sayers, I., Barton, S., Rorke, S., Beghe, B., Hayward, B., Van Eerdewegh, P., ... Holgate, S. T. (2003). Allelic association and functional studies of promoter polymorphism in the leukotriene C4 synthase gene (LTC4S) in asthma. Thorax, 58(5), 417-424. DOI: 10.1136/thorax.58.5.417

Beghé, B., Barton, S., Rorke, S., Peng, Q., Sayers, I., Gaunt, T., ... Holloway, J. W. (2003). Polymorphisms in the interleukin-4 and interleukin-4 receptor ? chain genes confer susceptibility to asthma and atopy in a Caucasian population. Clinical & Experimental Allergy, 33(8), 1111-1117. DOI: 10.1046/j.1365-2222.2003.01731.x

Sayers, I., Barton, S., Rorke, S., Sawyer, J., Peng, Q., Beghe, B., ... Holgate, S. T. (2003). Promoter polymorphism in the 5-lipoxygenase (ALOX5) and 5-lipoxygenase-activating protein (ALOX5AP) genes and asthma susceptibility in a Caucasian population. Clinical & Experimental Allergy, 33(8), 1103-1110. DOI: 10.1046/j.1365-2222.2003.01733.x

Review

Holbrook, J. D., Lillycrop, K., & Barton, S. (2017). Is cellular heterogeneity merely a confounder to be removed from epigenome-wide association studies? Epigenomics.

7 years experience of teaching in a U.K. Comprehensive School across the full age and ability range (ages 11 to 18), including A-Level statistics
teaches the Statistical Genetics Module of the MSc Statistics with Applications in Medicine for the School of Mathematics with associated assessment
supervises Summer Projects for the MSc Statistics with Applications in Medicine, also active in contributing to assessment procedures/forms for the assessment of MSc SAM dissertations resulting from these Summer Projects
lecturing on how we use statistics in genetics to the Faculty of Medicine PhD students
lecturing the Faculty of Medicine postdoctoral students on types of data and basic statistics

Dr Sheila Barton
Tel: +44 (0)23 8077 7624 Email: S.J.Barton@soton.ac.uk

Room Number:SGH/MRC/MP95

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