Beneficial Stats

Statisticians who normally crunch numbers to forecast trends in the food-service industry turn their attention to bettering treatment of ALS.

| 4 min read

Register for free to listen to this article
Listen with Speechify
0:00
4:00
Share

PUZZLE MASTERS: The network of researchers that participate in DREAM-sponsored challenges provide pieces of the solution to important biomedical problems. Problems range from very basic science questions such as the inference of biological networks, to translational problems, such as models for disease prognosis and treatment response. To date DREAM has curated 32 open challenges. DANIEL MARBACH AND VALDO PEIXOTO

Statistician Liuxia Wang is in the business of prediction. At Sentrana Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based sales and marketing company, she uses data on consumers’ spending behaviors to forecast future trends in the food-service industry. But she never imagined her analytical expertise could be put to use helping patients suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), the fatal neurodegenerative disease commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

“At the end of the day, data is data, whether you’re using it to find the optimal price for certain products or estimating a disease’s course,” says Wang. “But it’s nice to be able to use predictive analytics to benefit patients.”

Working under the team name “Sentrana,” Wang and her colleague Guang “Eric” Li, a quantitative modeler, beat a global community ...

Interested in reading more?

Become a Member of

The Scientist Logo
Receive full access to digital editions of The Scientist, as well as TS Digest, feature stories, more than 35 years of archives, and much more!
Already a member? Login Here
3D illustration of a gold lipid nanoparticle with pink nucleic acid inside of it. Purple and teal spikes stick out from the lipid bilayer representing polyethylene glycol.
February 2025, Issue 1

A Nanoparticle Delivery System for Gene Therapy

A reimagined lipid vehicle for nucleic acids could overcome the limitations of current vectors.

View this Issue
Enhancing Therapeutic Antibody Discovery with Cross-Platform Workflows

Enhancing Therapeutic Antibody Discovery with Cross-Platform Workflows

sartorius logo
Considerations for Cell-Based Assays in Immuno-Oncology Research

Considerations for Cell-Based Assays in Immuno-Oncology Research

Lonza
An illustration of animal and tree silhouettes.

From Water Bears to Grizzly Bears: Unusual Animal Models

Taconic Biosciences
Sex Differences in Neurological Research

Sex Differences in Neurological Research

bit.bio logo

Products

Photo of a researcher overseeing large scale production processes in a laboratory.

Scaling Lentiviral Vector Manufacturing for Optimal Productivity

Thermo Fisher Logo
Collage-style urban graphic of wastewater surveillance and treatment

Putting Pathogens to the Test with Wastewater Surveillance

An illustration of an mRNA molecule in front of a multicolored background.

Generating High-Quality mRNA for In Vivo Delivery with lipid nanoparticles

Thermo Fisher Logo
Tecan Logo

Tecan introduces Veya: bringing digital, scalable automation to labs worldwide