Taming Information Overload

Department of Biostatistics

In teasing insights about disease and health from genetic samples, researchers use microarray technology to measure the expression of tens of thousands of genes simultaneously. Typical experiments produce hundreds of thousands of numbers, but an errant thumbprint or other contamination can yield false results. That’s why scientists turn to biostatisticians like Rafael Irizarry to help sift the mountains of digital data for accurate results. Irizarry’s skill in discovering problems in the data and extracting the most useful information have made him one of the world’s most highly cited biostatisticians.