Carroll-Wang Biology Research Group
Department of Statistics http://stat.tamu.edu/~carroll
Raymond Carroll, carroll@stat.tamu.edu
Naisyin Wang, nwang@stat.tamu.edu

What We Do
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Our Aim : Develop statistical methods for analysis of diet and cancer relationships, especially colon cancer
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Cell and molecular biology based studies
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Functional, computational, highdimensional data analysis

Where Does the Nutrition Come In?
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We work with Drs. J. Lupton, N. Turner and R. Chapkin of Nutrition
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Generally, there are two diets:
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One rich in Corn oil
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Other rich in Fish oil
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The Fish oil diet is protective for colon cancer: the data are striking
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Our goal is to answer why this is the case

About Me
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I grew up in Wichita Falls, Ph.D. from
Purdue, 13 years at UNC, then here as head of department from 1987-90
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I have been working on nutrition and cancer for 15 years
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I continue work with NCI Researchers on Nutritional Epidemiology and A&M researchers on basic Biology

About Naisyin Wang
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From Taiwan, Ph.D. from Cornell in
1991
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Our 1 st female Full professor
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Faculty Fellow
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Elected Fellow of the American
Statistical Association
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Associate editor of multiple scientific journals
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Has worked with me since her arrival here

Some Statistics
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Basic Research Grants
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We each are P.I.’s on National Cancer
Institute grants
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Bioinformatics Training Grant
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P.I. and primary co-investigator
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NIH Center for Environmental and
Rural Health
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P.I. of Biostatistics Core
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Impact on Nutrition and Colon Cancer
Research
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Biostatisticians on multiple grants

Our Graduate Students
Gosia Leyk,
Oxidative Damage
Tanya Apanasovich,
Aberrant Crypt Foci
Zonghui Hu,
DNA adducts
Christie Spinka,
Genetic Epidemiology
Veera Baladandayuthapani,
Gene interactions

Architecture of Colon Crypts
Lumen crypts
• Stem Cells :
– Mother cells near bottom
• Depth in crypt ~ age of cells
– Suggests importance of depth
– We see these location effects in all our work: statistically interesting

Analysis of DNA Repair in Colonic
Crypts
This work (with
Marina Vannucci) has won two honors
Editor’s Invited paper,
2003, JASA (the major journal in the field)
Mitchell Prize for
Bayesian methodology
The first development of wavelets in hierarchical functional data

Other Current Hierarchical, Funcational
Data Projects
Flare Image Analysis for
Oxidative damage
Aberrant Crypt Foci:
Spatial clustering
Multiple biomarkers per cell, and spatial clustering

The Bioinformatics Training Program
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Naisyin and I realized in 1999 that few statisticians knew anything about basic molecular biology
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The communication difficulties are real: how many non-statisticians know the buzzword Functional Data Analysis ?
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How many statisticians know about
Apoptosis (programmed cell death)?

The Bioinformatics Training Program
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We enlisted help from colleagues in
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Nutrition
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Electrical engineering
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Toxicology
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Biochemistry
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We obtained an NCI grant
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We recruit:
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Statisticians
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Electrical engineers

Mahlet Tadesse, Harvard,
Microarrays (M. Vannucci)
Current Trainees
Wenjiang Fu, Michigan State,
Microarrays for DNA expression
(Tai Hsing)
Kimberley Drews, Texas Tech,
Cell gene expression profiles (RJC)
Ivan Ivanov, Central Florida,
Gene regulatory networks (E. Dougherty)

The Bioinformatics Training Program
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The program consists of
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Coursework in biology, nutrition and genetics
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Mentoring in life sciences labs
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Kimberley Drews (Joanne Lupton,
Nutrition)
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Mahlet Tadesse (Ken Ramos, Toxicology)
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Ivan Ivanov (Jerry Tsai, Biochemistry)
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Wenjiang Fu (Guoyao Wu, Nutrition)

The Bioinformatics Training Program
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Two trainees have finished the program
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Danh Nguyen , now in the Bioinformatics
Research Group at UC-Davis
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Aniruddha Datta , now in Electrical
Engineering at TAMU
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In addition, there are 7 graduate students that were partially supported by the VPR office
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They also do the training, courses, etc.

The Bioinformatics Training Program
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You will next hear from one of the postdoctoral trainees, Dr. Mahlet
Tadesse , and her statistical mentor,
Associate Professor Marina Vannucci
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They will describe how the training program works and their joint research that has resulted from it.