Biostatistics Podcast

What are gene therapies? What are some recent advancement in gene therapy? How does development in gene therapy differ from common drugs? Today's episode is slightly different from the previous ones. It is the first time that TWO brilliant biostatisticians share their insight in the same episode! Avery McIntosh and Alex Sverdlov will answer all the questions about gene therapy for you! Dr. McIntosh is currently engaged in drug development for rare diseases at Pfizer, where he leads a team of statisticians working across different study phases and a range of drug types and disease areas. Meanwhile, Dr. Sverdlov serves as the Neuroscience Disease Area statistical lead at Novartis, where he focuses on methodological research and the application of innovative statistical methods in drug development. Other than an interesting gene therapy 101 that Avery and Alex gave in this episode, they also recently co-published a book called "Development of gene therapies: strategic, scientific, regulatory, and Access considerations", which is now available. I will put the link of the book in the show notes and please check it out if you are either a long term enthusiast of gene therapy or if you start to think gene therapy is interesting after listening to this episode. Let dive into this episode and see what Avery and Alex have shared with us. You can find Avery and Alex's new book here. Please visit our website https://biostatisticspodcast.github.io/ for the latest updates and transcripts of the published episodes. If you have any comments, feedback, or suggestions, feel free to email us via biostatisticspodcast@gmail.com or DM us on Twitter @BiostatsPodcast Powered by Firstory Hosting

What is it like to work as a statistician in the UCLA department of medicine statistics core? How do biostatisticians contribute to public policy making? What are some typical methods that are used in longitudinal studies? Nicholas Jackson will answer all these questions for you. Dr. Jackson earned his PhD in Quantitative Psychology from University of Southern California, and now serves as an associated professor in the Division of general internal medicine and health services research in UCLA. His research interests span a broad spectrum, from sophisticated longitudinal methods to the cutting-edge machine learning methods of big data analysis. His practical work focuses on child and adolescent behavioural development, diabetes prevention. and health service research. Let's dive into this episode and see what Nick has shared with us. Please visit our website https://biostatisticspodcast.github.io/ for the latest updates and transcripts of the published episodes. If you have any comments, feedback, or suggestions, feel free to email us via biostatisticspodcast@gmail.com or DM us on Twitter @BiostatsPodcast Powered by Firstory Hosting

What is it like to work for a statistical consulting company? What are some common paths for statisticians to take in a consulting company? What are some skills needed in a statistical consultancy? Grace Hsu will answer all these questions for you! Grace got her master's degree in statistics from Simon Fraser University and currently is working in Cytel as an associate Director & Research principal. She has a lot of experience in developing and presenting advanced statistical methods to both statistical and non-statistical audiences and has supported submissions to HTAs and other regulatory bodies. Let's dive into this episode and see what Grace has shared with us! Please visit our website https://biostatisticspodcast.github.io/ for the latest updates and transcripts of the published episodes. If you have any comments, feedback, or suggestions, feel free to email us via biostatisticspodcast@gmail.com or DM us on Twitter @BiostatsPodcast Powered by Firstory Hosting

What are some important skills that are helpful while doing post-graduate training? What is the trend in academia as Biostatistics gets more and more competitive? How to navigate career choice between industry and academia? Dr. Jin Jin will answer all these questions for you. Jin Jin received her phd in Biostatistics from the University of Minnesota and now works as an Assistant Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Pennsylvania, Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Informatics. With a research focus on integrating large-scale datasets to address cutting-edge problems in public health and medicine, she deals with complex issues such as health equity in disease risk prediction, statistical genetics, and Bayesian hierarchical models for high-dimensional data. Let's dive into this episode and see what Jin Jin has shared with us. Please visit our website https://biostatisticspodcast.github.io/ for the latest updates and transcripts of the published episodes. If you have any comments, feedback or suggestions, feel free to email us via biostatisticspodcast@gmail.com or DM us on Twitter @BiostatsPodcast Powered by Firstory Hosting

What are the differences between early phase trial design and late phase trial design? What are some common assumptions for early trial designs? What are some challenges for statistics nowadays? Dr. Brian Smith will answer all these questions for you. Brian got his Phd in statistics from the University of Kentucky and has been actively involved in promoting quantitative sciences in drug development. He has a diverse background in biostatistics and has held numerous positions in the pharmaceutical industry and academia. He currently holds the position of executive director of Biostatistics at Novartis. Throughout his career, Brian has focused on early clinical development in the pharmaceutical industry. He has played an active role in the development and implementation of statistical methods to improve the efficiency and quality of drug development. With his vast experience and expertise in biostatistics, Brian has become a respected leader in the field and continues to contribute to the advancement of quantitative sciences in drug development. Let’s dive into this episode and see what Brian shared with us. Please visit our website https://biostatisticspodcast.github.io/ for the latest updates and transcripts of the published episodes. If you have any comments, feedback or suggestions, feel free to email us via biostatisticspodcast@gmail.com or DM us on Twitter @BiostatsPodcast Powered by Firstory Hosting

Can you do research while being in a industry setting? How do people do science in real world ? What are some technical and cultural difference between statistics and machine learning? Jonathan O'Brien will answer all these questions for you! Jonathan obtained his PhD degree in biostatistics from University of North Carolina and currently works as a principle data scientist in Calico life science which is a health care biotech company that focuses on combating aging and aging related diseases. His main research interest has been focused on improving the mathematical modeling and downstream analysis of mass spectrometry proteomics experiments which involves missing data techniques, Bayesian hierarchical modeling, clustering and compositional data analysis. It was great talking to Jonathan since he gave me a lot of new perspectives, and I learned a lot more about proteomics studies and what he is working on. Let's dive into this episode to see what Jonathan shared with us! The paper mentioned in this episode can be found here: The effects of nonignorable missing data on label-free mass spectrometry proteomics experiments. Please visit our website https://biostatisticspodcast.github.io/ for the latest updates and transcripts of the published episodes. If you have any comments, feedback or suggestions, feel free to email us via biostatisticspodcast@gmail.com or DM us on Twitter @BiostatsPodcast Powered by Firstory Hosting

How can statistics aid research about health effects of air pollution and climate change? What is the underlying difference between data science and statistics? What is the Harvard data science initiative? Francesca Dominici is here to answer all these questions for you! Dr. Dominici obtained her PhD degree in statistics from University of Padua in Italy and currently is Clarence James Gamble Professor of Biostatistics, Population and Data Science at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health and Co-Director of the Harvard Data Science Initiative. The main focus of her research is to utilize statistical techniques in addressing significant problems in environmental health science, pollution and climate change. Her studies have resulted in a direct and continuous impact on air quality policies, leading to more stringent standards for ambient air quality in the United States. In addition, she has a keen interest in Bayesian causal inference methods for large-scale observational data and their potential application to comparative effectiveness research in cancer. Other than the academic achievements, Dr. Dominici also devotes herself into promoting diversity in academia. Let's dive into this episode to see what she shared with us! Please visit our website https://biostatisticspodcast.github.io/ for the latest updates and transcripts of the published episodes. If you have any comments, feedback or suggestions, feel free to email us via biostatisticspodcast@gmail.com or DM us on Twitter @BiostatsPodcast Powered by Firstory Hosting

What are some differences between biostatisticians in hospitals and the pharma industry? What are some specific skill sets required for these jobs? And how can Bayesian framework be used in benefit-risk assessment of new medical products or interventions? Carl DiCasoli will answer all these questions for you. Carl obtained his PhD in statistics from North Carolina State University and currently is working as the director of biostatistics at Sunovion Pharmaceuticals, where he acts as senior reviewer and lead biostatistician in clinical trials in neurology, designs innovative Bayesian adaptive phase 1 first-in-human single ascending dose study for a new compound at Sunovion and collaborates with Frontier Business Division within Sunovion to drive clinical trials for a digital therapeutics medical device to treat social anxiety. Wait, what is that? I've also seen Carl's name on the Piano World piano forums? And there are words on the street that instead of a statistician, he was almost a professional classical pianist? Let's hear more about it in this episode. Check out this video for Dr. DiCasoli's great piano performance in 2019 San Diego International Amateur Piano Competition Finalist! Please visit our website https://biostatisticspodcast.github.io/ for the latest updates and transcripts of the published episodes. If you have any comments, feedback or suggestions, feel free to email us via biostatisticspodcast@gmail.com or DM us on Twitter @BiostatsPodcast Stay tuned :D Intro Music: Chris - C418 Outro Music: Wet Hands - C418 Powered by Firstory Hosting