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Category:Research
Data Gaps
UW SPH Magazine,
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Investigators commonly find mixtures of DNA in a single forensic sample that contain various unequal contributions, like the DNA samples that could come from multiple people using one knife. Now, the development of technologies can reveal and identify smaller, previously undetectable amounts of DNA samples within the mixture, which enables more specific DNA identification. Faculty member Bruce Weir is interviewed.

in Research
Simpler models to identify suicide risk perform similarly to more complex ones
Kaiser Permanente Washington Research Center,
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Models for suicide preventions that are easier to explain and use could have better uptake in health care settings. UW Biostatistics Affiliate Faculty Susan Shortreed was lead author on this recent study which compares the performance of 5 different models developed to identify a patient's risk of suicidal behavior.

in Research
Mosaic HIV immunogens boost the breadth of vaccine immune responses
Fred Hutch,
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Mosaic and consensus HIV-1 immunogen vaccines were tested in a clinical trial led by a team of researchers including Drs. Kristen Cohen, Andrew Fiore-Gartland, Peter Gilbert and M. Juliana McElrath from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division. Their findings were published recently in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

in Research
UW-led team receives $4.2M grant to develop AI-guided brain stimulation methods aimed at treating mental health disorders
UW Electrical & Computer Engineering,
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Ali Shojaie will be a member of new multidisciplinary, multi-institutional team that recently received a five-year, $4.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to develop neural stimulation techniques guided by artificial intelligence (AI) machine learning methods.

in Research
Metabolomic Signatures Associated With Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension Outcomes
National Library of Medicine,
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UW Biostatistics postdoc Lu Xia is first author, and faculty member Ali Shojaie a co-author, of research that found distinct plasma metabolomic profiles are associated with right ventricular dilation, mortality, and measures of disease severity in pulmonary arterial hypertension.

in Research
The WHO estimates of excess mortality associated with the COVID-19 pandemic
Nature,
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The World Health Organization has a mandate to compile and disseminate statistics on mortality, and we have been tracking the progression of the COVID-19 pandemic since the beginning of 2020. Here we report a comprehensive and consistent measurement of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic by estimating excess deaths, by month, for 2020 and 2021. 

in Research
Three-Way Identity-by-Descent Approach Refines Average Genome-Wide Mutation Rate for Humans
genomeweb,
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Researchers have used a new approach to refine the estimate of the average genome-wide mutation rate for humans, which they pegged at 1.24 x 10-8 per base pair per generation.

According to UW Professor of Biostatistics Sharon Browning and her colleagues, the rate they calculated "is consistent with our previous IBD-based estimates but has tighter confidence intervals because of the larger sample size enabled by the methodology presented here."

in Research
U.S.FDA panel votes against Veru's COVID-19 pill
Reuters,
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"Even though (the data) is impressive for a new molecular entity - it has no direct evidence to support the antiviral activity," said panel member Susanne May, who voted against authorization of the drug. May is a professor of biostatistics with the University of Washington School of Public Health and director of the UW Clinical Trials Center.

in Research