How do researchers know a discovery is truly caused by the factors they think it is — and not by something they have not discovered yet?  That question drove the development of sensGAN, a new machine-learning model developed at UW by recent biostatistics graduate Yifan Lin and her advisor Kevin Z. Lin. The tool was designed to help researchers evaluate the reliability of Alzheimer’s disease findings by estimating whether unknown biological elements could account for observed results.

Matt Conomos, a senior research scientist with the UW Biostatistics Genetics Analysis Center, co-authored a recent study that supports the idea that deletions in genes that regulate early brain and neuron development are associated with more severe features of schizophrenia spectrum disorders, particularly lower cognitive abilities.

An observational study of more than 83,000 older U.S. men with localized prostate cancer found that Black and white patients were equally likely to receive secondary treatment after initial therapy, whether their first treatment was surgery or radiation. However, among patients who did not receive secondary treatment, Black men had up to two times higher risk of dying from prostate cancer than white men. Affiliate faculty Ruth Etzioni is co-author of the study.

Thomas Lumley, PhD ’98, an affiliate biostatistics faculty member in the University of Washington School of Public Health, is among the recipients of the $1 million 2026 Rousseeuw Prize in Statistics, considered the Nobel Prize for statisticians. Lumley and others were recognized for their pivotal achievements in advancing R programming language.

In this episode, world-renowned oncologist D. Ross Camidge, MD, PhD sat down with Tom Fleming, PhD, a professor of biostatistics at the University of Washington School of Public Health in Seattle to discuss how Fleming's interest in biostatistics led to a multifaceted career in clinical trial design and analysis.

UW recently ranked No. 3 in the world for biostatistics graduate programs by U.S. News & World Report (USNWR) in their annual report published April 7. Faculty members Ken Rice and Marco Carone were interviewed as well as current PhD student Bumjun Park.

The FDA's move to incorporate Bayesian statistical methods into clinical trials of drugs and biologics garnered special treatment in JAMA this week. UW Professor of Biostatistics Thomas Fleming weighs in with his thoughts.