News

Celebrating Black History Month

16 October 2024

Meet Folarin Oyebolu , Research Associate working with William Astle . Folarin discusses his route to biostatistics research, his early influences, and what Black History Month means to him. I have taken a meandering path to the BSU with a throughline of biopharma and biochemical engineering. My undergraduate was in...

Girl power at the International Day of Women in Statistics and Data Science

16 October 2024

There was fantastic BSU representation at the International Day of Women in Statistics and Data Science (IDWSDS) on Tuesday 8th October 2024. idwsds_news_graphic.png IDWSDS is a free virtual 24-hour conference hosted by Caucus for Women in Statisitcs and Data Science (CWSDS), showcasing the amazing women working in...

Research Culture Celebration

11 October 2024

Many congratulations to BSU Programme Leader, Sofía Villar , on being nominated for the University of Cambridge Research Culture Award. This nomination is a recognition of the often-overlooked, yet essential elements of high-quality team research. It's a recognition that aims to go beyond the typical metrics, and...

Visual abstract illustrating the method and results of removing pint sizing

Does removing the pint serving size cut beer consumption?

18 September 2024

Researchers from the Behaviour and Health Research Unit at the University of Cambridge and the MRC Biostatistics Unit (BSU) have been studying links between alcohol consumption and serving sizes. They previously found that when pubs, bars and restaurants removed their largest serving of wine by the glass - usually 250ml -...

The life of a BSU Intern

3 September 2024

For the fourth consecutive year, we were delighted to host a group of brilliant interns over the summer. Our internship programme provides those with an interest in data science and knowledge of statistics to join the Unit for 2 months, to work on projects being led by our researchers. They carry out data analysis, take...

Congratulations to Paul Kirk

15 August 2024

We are delighted to announce that Paul Kirk has been promoted to Principal Research Associate ( full Programme Leader in MRC terms), recognising his outstanding work and contributions to the Unit’s research over the last few years. Paul co-leads the Biostatistical Machine Learning theme, a new research theme at the BSU...

Photo of 2024 Nuffield Placement Student, Zayneb Kasur, sat at desk in front of computer screen

Inspiring our future Biostatisticians

14 August 2024

This summer, we were delighted to host three work experience students, providing them with a taste of what it’s like to be a biostatistician and inspiring them to pursue a career in a Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subject. We welcomed Zayneb Kusar, Aimee Asimit and Isaac Kim. Zayneb’s placement was...

Causal Language Attitudes Questionnaire

6 August 2024

We are interested in how people interpret the language used in healthcare reporting and how it could be improved. For example: "Red meat consumption is associated with a higher risk of bowel cancer" "People who drink whie wine are more likely to experience depression" To help achieve this, we have launched a questionnaire...

Bethany Heath receives award to present at conference

2 August 2024

Congratulations to BSU PhD student, Bethany Heath , on receiving a grant award to present at the International Biometric Conference. Bethany has received one of six travel grants from the International Biometric Society (IBS) British and Irish Region for career-young biostatisticians to participate at the International...

Infographic illustrating new CoPheScan method

New method for understanding how changing proteins link to disease risk

1 August 2024

The availability of genetic data linked to electronic health records in large-scale biomedical databases or biobanks has facilitated the widespread popularity of Phenome-Wide Association Studies (PheWAS). These studies explore links between changes in DNA sequence and the “phenome”: patient's characteristics such as...