Biostatistics

Siri Eikrem Skotland

Large quantities of data produced by research needs to be deciphered and modelled. Doing this in a smart way will enhance the quality of the results as well as the value, and increase our understanding of the function of the biological system. This is the main focus for the Biostatistics group headed by Are Aastveit.

The group has for several years been working with development of methods to avoid undesired variations during processing, resulting in higher product quality and reduced loss. The result has been five doctor students who have conducted innovative research in different industries.

During the last years, analysis of data from microarray experiments has been central to the research group. The technology of DNA microarray allows monitoring of thousands of hybridisations simultaneously. One important theme for the group has been to study comparative genomic hybridisations (CGH) for bacteria in order to determine the level of genomic similarity between various strains. This work has been in close collaboration with the research group Microbial Gene Technology.

Another project is aimed at developing a stable and robust assay for early detection of breast cancer and Alzheimer’s disease using gene expression technology and peripheral blood as clinical sample. This is done in collaboration with the company Diagenic AS.

The research group has also moved towards proteomics during the last year. The main objective of this project is to develop a platform for more efficient utilisation of several advanced mass spectroscopic instruments recently acquired at UMB, combined with modern data analysis. This can be divided into four sub-goals:

1. Develop procedures for robust optimisation of instruments.
2. Test, tune and develop pre-processing methodology for MS measurements.
3. Investigate the effect of interactions in samples, and develop methodology for detecting and possibly correcting for interactions.
4. Develop the use of 2-way and multi-way methods for data analysis.

Some of the group members are related to Cigene (Centre for Integrative Genetics), UMB's centre for systems biology. Their focus is contribution to a deep causal understanding of complex genetic characters in fish, plants and animals.

The group is responsible for teaching the courses in statistics and bioinformatics at the university. In addition they are responsible for basic courses in mathematics.

Biostatistics group 2007 Foto: Solve Sæbø

The Biostatistics group (2007):
Are Aastveit, Professor Ph. D.
Erik Plahte, Professor emeritus
Trygve Almøy, Associate Professor, Ph. D.
Lars-Gustav Snipen, Associate Professor, Ph. D.
Torfinn Torp, Associate Professor
Jan Sverre Søreng, Associate Professor
Ellen Sandberg, Assistant Professor
Solve Sæbø, Researcher
Bjørn-Helge Mevik, Post doc.
Guri Feten, Post doc (Diagenic)
Anne-Grete Roer, Ph. D. Student (Bioforsk)
Kristian Hovde Liland, Ph. D. Student
Øystein Tenfjord Engelsen, Ph. D. Student
Julia Isaeva, Ph. D. Student
Guro Dørum, Ph. D. Student
Trude Solbakken, Master Student
Katrine Damgaard, Master Student
Lasse Samuelsen, Master Student
Tahir Mehmood, Master Student
Aziz Sethi, Master Student

Research Projects (Name of contact persons in brackets)
• DiaGenics (Feten og Sæbø). Development of a stable and robust assay for early detection of breast cancer and Alzheimers using gene expression technology and peripheral blood as clinical samples. Read more....(Norwegian)

• Bioinformatics - analysis of microarray data (Feten). Read more....

• Implementing a platform for high-throughput proteomics at UMB's new Mass Spectroscopy instruments (Mevik). Read more...

• The Biostatistics group has a project together with EWOS Innovation ASA, where we look at the use of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectral measurements for understanding and predicting quality parameters of biological samples (Mevik)

• Studies of and development of methods to handle, propagate and axpress uncertainty in models (Roer).

Publications recent 5 years

Oppdatert: 20.02.07
Utskriftsvennlig versjon : Arkiv : Tips en venn