NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Duke University School of Medicine has established a new Center for Statistical Genetics and Genomics, providing a space for scientists from various disciplines across campus to work collaboratively on computational and statistical challenges in genomics.
The university has tapped Andrew Allen, a professor of biostatistics and bioinformatics at Duke, to lead the center, which it said will bring together quantitative talent from disciplines such as math, biostatistics, statistics, and engineering to work on key problems in genomic medicine. The center will also bring trainees from various educational programs together in a common laboratory environment where they will work together in teams to solve problems, the university said.
"This mixing of various perspectives and backgrounds will help break down traditional barriers between disciplines and will form a potent model for the development of future quantitative genomic scientists," Allen said in a statement.
"Sophisticated computational and statistical methods are required to advance our knowledge of disease biology as well as to identify important, treatment-relevant features of individual patient genomes," he continued. "It is essential that, as an institution, Duke not only be a sophisticated user of these techniques and create an infrastructure for their principled use, but that Duke becomes a leader in this field and push the development of computational and statistical approaches that respond to existing or emerging challenges."