News

Mendelian Randomization course turns 10!

21 February 2025

This March marks a significant milestone for the Mendelian randomization (MR) course here at the MRC Biostatistics Unit, as it enters its 10th year. First offered in 2015 as a two day, in-person course, the course is aimed at introducing participants to Mendelian randomization, a statistical technique that uses genetic...

£10m Funding for New Programme to Help Identify Individual Cancer Risk

22 January 2025

Doctors could soon be able to predict your individual chances of getting cancer and offer personalised detection and prevention, thanks to a new research project. Today, Cancer Research UK, the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) are...

BSU Strengthens Ties with Google Through Visiting Researcher Appointment

20 January 2025

Dr Sofia Villar, Programme Leader at the BSU, has been appointed a Visiting Researcher at Google. In this role, she will collaborate with PhD student Amy Lee, fellow Visiting Faculty Researcher Nina Deliu, and a multidisciplinary team of behavioral scientists and computer scientists on the Fitbit team. This collaboration...

Stephen Burgess contributes to Top Cited Article by European Society of Cardiology

8 January 2025

“Mendelian randomization for cardiovascular diseases: principles and applications” , is number 1 in the European Heart Journal Top Cited Articles for 2023. The paper, co-authored by Stephen Burgess at the MRC Biostatistics Unit, Susanna C. Larsson, and Adam Butterworth at the Department of Public Health and Primary Care...

Image of scrable pieces spelling out words 'mental health'

Radical rethink of mental health support for adolescents

19 December 2024

Young people have given important insights into what mental health support they prefer and what does not work for them or meet their needs, as part of a major new study of thousands of adolescents. The new study, led by researchers at the University of Oxford and the MRC Biostatistics Unit, found that adolescents access a...

Group photo of BSU PhD students, standing outside and smiling at the camera

Introducing our first year PhD Students

28 November 2024

In October, we welcomed a brilliant new cohort of PhD students. They are; Connor Fitchett, Boris Vasilev, Joshua Park, Letao Yuan, Shawn Han, Fuming Yang, Nasir Bashir and Simone Baskir. Here some of them introduce themselves. Letao Yuan "I have recently joined as a PhD student in the Efficient Study Design theme...

New evidence about whether Air Cleaning Units reduce hospital-acquired infections

17 October 2024

Researchers from Cambridge University Hospitals and the University of Cambridge, including the Department of Medicine and the MRC Biostatistics Unit (BSU), have been leading the Addenbrookes Air Disinfection Study (AAirDS) looking at whether Air Cleaning Units in hospital wards reduce hospital-acquired infections...

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...