Biostatistics

2024 Research News

In 2024, the Department of Biostatistics had an exceptional year, introducing innovative initiatives, advancing groundbreaking research, and celebrating a historic number of funded projects. Our faculty's pioneering work in both methodological innovation and interdisciplinary research tackles today's most pressing health challenges. In this section, we highlight these achievements, including the launch of the TRAIL4Health program and our significant milestone in research.

Introducing TRAIL4Health

Building on our department’s recent milestones, we are excited to introduce TRAIL4Health, a Translational AI Laboratory committed to advancing public health through innovative applications of artificial intelligence and data science. TRAIL4Health’s research spans five key domains.

  • Data Integration explores novel ways to bring together diverse data sources—including EHRs, omics data, and imaging—to inform both population-level and precision medicine solutions.
  • Statistical Foundations for AI applies rigorous statistical principles to ensure AI-driven predictions and inferences are accurate, fair, and actionable.
  • AI + Omics harnesses multi-omics data (genomics, proteomics, metabolomics) to advance precision medicine, unmasking hidden patterns in complex diseases.
  • AI + Mobile Health analyzes real-time data from wearables and sensors to enable timely interventions and personalized feedback.
  • AI for Public and Community Health tackles larger-scale challenges by predicting disease outbreaks, pinpointing health disparities, and informing policy, all with the goal of improving health outcomes at the population level.

Through these focus areas, TRAIL4Health works on Methodological Innovation, Infrastructure Development, and Collaboration and Community Building.

TRAIL4Health Research Salon & Learning Series

At TRAIL4Health, we host a variety of events to foster learning, collaboration, and the exchange of ideas at the intersection of AI, public health, and medicine.

The TRAIL4Health Research Salon is a recurring event series, aimed at fostering interdisciplinary collaboration and deep exploration of cutting-edge topics at the intersection of AI and health. Each salon addresses a distinct research challenge, beginning with a series of journal club sessions to review the current state of the field and identify knowledge gaps. These discussions lead to a one-day event featuring invited experts from various disciplines, where research talks are followed by deep-dive discussions into emerging opportunities and challenges. The first salon, held in the August of 2024, highlighted emerging research that integrates statistical reasoning with predictive AI models to enable inferential AI solutions, supporting robust decision-making and informing actions in health. It also emphasized the need for and challenges of developing inferential AI for healthcare.

The TRAIL Brown Bag Learning Series is a weekly informal gathering held on Fridays at noon in Room 627 of the Allen Rosenfield Building. These sessions are an opportunity for faculty, students, and researchers to come together and learn something new—whether it be a dataset, software, new article, or simply to exchange ideas. This informal setting provides a platform for sharing knowledge, stimulating discussions, and fostering collaboration in a relaxed environment. In 2024, we reviewed practical methods for fine-tuning large language models, learned about the All-of-Us initiative and the Health and Retirement Study, discussed innovative ways to identify causal proteins in Alzheimer’s disease (combining Mendelian randomization with protein structure prediction), examined the application of advanced language models to cell type classification, and reviewed foundational concepts and emerging research trends in Alzheimer’s disease.  The series continues to spark innovation and support our growing research community.

Celebrating a Record Year of Grants

In addition to these exciting initiatives, 2024 marked a historic level of research funding for the Department of Biostatistics. We secured the highest number of grants as Principal Investigator (PI) or Multiple Principal Investigator (MPI) in our department’s history. This includes six R01 grants, one P20, one R21, one K99, and one T32. This achievement underscores our commitment to innovative methods, impactful collaborations, and rigorous scientific inquiry. 

We extend our warmest congratulations to Drs. Qixuan Chen, Zhonghua Liu, Caleb Miles, and Tian Gu for receiving their first R01 grants— a major milestone in their research careers. Dr. Qixuan Chen’s R01 focuses on developing novel approaches to refine immunoassay data. Dr. Zhonghua Liu’s award aims to unravel causal insights into complex neurological conditions by integrating diverse molecular datasets. Dr. Caleb Miles addresses one of the country's most pressing public health issues by uniting fragmented data sources to advance more representative clinical research. Finally, Dr. Tian Gu’s project seeks to bring precision oncology methods to historically underserved groups, thereby broadening the impact of cancer risk models. These projects showcase the depth and diversity of the Department’s research contributions and lay a strong foundation for future innovations. 

Additionally, we also congratulate Hyunkyu (Cue) Lee, a postdoctoral research scientist, for receiving his K99 grant. His research focuses on Multi-Trait Analysis in Large-Scale Biobank Datasets Linked to Electronic Health Records. This award represents a crucial stepping stone for early-career investigators, providing independent funding and paving the way toward establishing their own research programs.

3th DeGRI (Departmental Grant Writing initiative) Winners

In its third year, the Department’s annual Grant Writing Initiative continues to foster new research by supporting two promising studies in preparation for R01 submissions. This year’s recipients, Dr. Tian Gu and Dr. Xiao Wu, are pursuing cutting-edge work that addresses pressing health issues. Dr. Gu’s project aims to improve breast cancer screening equity through AI-based image enhancement, ensuring higher-quality diagnostics for more patients. Meanwhile, Dr. Wu is developing a synthetic control framework to assess the long-term impact of tropical cyclones on chronic health conditions in the United States. This initiative underscores our commitment to nurturing innovative research and helping early-career faculty launch impactful investigative programs.

As we look to the future, the Department of Biostatistics remains dedicated to advancing methodological innovation, embracing emerging technologies, and fostering interdisciplinary collaborations that meet the evolving demands of public health and healthcare. Our faculty, students, and partners are ready to build on the successes of 2024 to create a future where data science continuously promotes better health outcomes. We are excited about the discoveries and initiatives on the horizon and are grateful to our entire community for contributing to an exceptional year of achievement.