title: SecureMA: protecting participant privacy in genetic association meta-analysis.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Sharing genomic data is crucial to support scientific investigation such as genome-wide association studies. However, recent investigations suggest the privacy of the individual participants in these studies can be compromised, leading to serious concerns and consequences, such as overly restricted access to data.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We introduce a novel cryptographic strategy to securely perform meta-analysis for genetic association studies in large consortia. Our methodology is useful for supporting joint studies among disparate data sites, where privacy or confidentiality is of concern. We validate our method using three multisite association studies. Our research shows that genetic associations can be analyzed efficiently and accurately across substudy sites, without leaking information on individual participants and site-level association summaries.
  
  
  METHODS
  Our software for secure meta-analysis of genetic association studies, SecureMA, is publicly available at http://github.com/XieConnect/SecureMA. Our customized secure computation framework is also publicly available at http://github.com/XieConnect/CircuitService.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37232, USA, Department of Computer Science, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX 75080, USA, Department of Biomedical Informatics, Center for Human Genetics Research, Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics and Department of Medicine, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37232, USA.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37232, USA, Department of Computer Science, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX 75080, USA, Department of Biomedical Informatics, Center for Human Genetics Research, Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics and Department of Medicine, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37232, USA.
authors.forename: Murat
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kantarcioglu
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37232, USA, Department of Computer Science, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX 75080, USA, Department of Biomedical Informatics, Center for Human Genetics Research, Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics and Department of Medicine, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37232, USA Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37232, USA, Department of Computer Science, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX 75080, USA, Department of Biomedical Informatics, Center for Human Genetics Research, Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics and Department of Medicine, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37232, USA.
authors.forename: William S
authors.initials: WS
authors.lastname: Bush
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37232, USA, Department of Computer Science, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX 75080, USA, Department of Biomedical Informatics, Center for Human Genetics Research, Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics and Department of Medicine, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37232, USA Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37232, USA, Department of Computer Science, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX 75080, USA, Department of Biomedical Informatics, Center for Human Genetics Research, Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics and Department of Medicine, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37232, USA.
authors.forename: Dana
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Crawford
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37232, USA, Department of Computer Science, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX 75080, USA, Department of Biomedical Informatics, Center for Human Genetics Research, Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics and Department of Medicine, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37232, USA Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37232, USA, Department of Computer Science, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX 75080, USA, Department of Biomedical Informatics, Center for Human Genetics Research, Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics and Department of Medicine, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37232, USA.
authors.forename: Joshua C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Denny
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37232, USA, Department of Computer Science, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX 75080, USA, Department of Biomedical Informatics, Center for Human Genetics Research, Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics and Department of Medicine, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37232, USA.
authors.forename: Raymond
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Heatherly
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37232, USA, Department of Computer Science, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX 75080, USA, Department of Biomedical Informatics, Center for Human Genetics Research, Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics and Department of Medicine, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37232, USA Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37232, USA, Department of Computer Science, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX 75080, USA, Department of Biomedical Informatics, Center for Human Genetics Research, Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics and Department of Medicine, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37232, USA.
authors.forename: Bradley A
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Malin
mesh_terms: D056726:Genetic Association Studies / Q000379:methods*; D030661:Genetic Privacy; D055106:Genome-Wide Association Study / Q000379:methods; D023281:Genomics; D006801:Humans; D007037:Hypothyroidism / Q000235:genetics; D015201:Meta-Analysis as Topic; D009765:Obesity / Q000235:genetics; D012984:Software