The COVID-19 pandemic has accentuated racial disparities in healthcare and health outcomes. For example, hospitalization and mortality rates for Black Americans are two, even three, times higher than those for White Americans. These health disparities have rekindled a longstanding debate about the use of race in clinical practice and biomedical research. In a recently published New England Journal of Medicine article, five genetic researchers who self-identify as Black provided their perspective on the use of race in medicine.  

A flagship paper co-authored by scores of researchers from across the University of Washington – including scientists from the UW Schools of Public Health and Medicine and the Brotman Baty Institute for Precision Medicine – shows just how valuable whole-genome sequencing data, and the variants they reveal, are to the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of heart, lung, blood and sleep disorders.

Ellen Wijsman will admit that she doesn’t have all the answers, but she might just have all the right questions. As Professor of Biostatistics in the UW School of Public Health and UW Division of Medical Genetics/Department of Medicine in the School of Medicine, she has a healthy skepticism for new scientific discoveries about Alzheimer’s disease. 

Mary Lou Biggs, project director and epidemiologist at the Collaborative Health Studies Coordinating Center (CHSCC) in the Department of Biostatics, is co-author of this study that found that a single fasting serum NEFA c

Biostatistics alum Xihong Lin (MS ’92, PhD ’94) is the recipient of the 2021 L. Adrienne Cupples Award for Excellence in Teaching, Research, and Service in Biostatistics. The award is presented by the Department of Biostatistics at the Boston University School of Public Health. Lin, a pioneer in statistical methods for analysis of whole genome sequencing studies, was also recently named one of 50 Changemakers of Public Health by the UW School of Public Health.