Biostatistics assistant professor Feifei Xiao wins grant to examine lung cancer at the genetic level
The National Human Genome Research Institute has awarded $426K to Feifei Xiao, an assistant professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics. She will use the two-year R21 grant to examine the links (e.g., disease risk and mechanisms) between copy number variation and lung cancer.
The study builds on the Human Genome Project, a 13-year international collaboration to identify and map all of the genes of the human genome. Since the project was completed in 2003, many scientists have used this publicly available information to better understand diseases (e.g., genotyping of specific viruses) to tailor treatment, identify mutations linked to various cancers, design medication and better predict its effects, and many other applications (e.g., forensics, biofuels, agriculture, anthropology). Read more.