3-year funded PhD studentship in Biostatistics at the University of Leicester for October 2018 start
Project title
Cancer epidemiology in the age of big data: Multi-state survival analysis to capture realistic disease pathways to improve patient monitoring and risk stratification
Supervisors
Dr Michael Crowther - please get in touch for an informal discussion about the project ([log in to unmask])
Professor Paul Lambert
A patient’s journey along a disease pathway can be highly complex, and can be impacted by recurrences, co-morbidities, and interventions, to name a few. To disentangle such complex profiles, we need multi-state survival models. These enable us to investigate diverse aspects of disease aetiology, and explore the impact of risk factors at all stages. Crucially, we can then attempt to communicate risk profiles in ways understandable to both patient and clinician, through easily interpretable measures (such as the impact on life expectancy, postponable deaths, survival and transition probabilities). With the improved availability of linked electronic health records, it is imperative that we have appropriate methods to utilise these exciting resources.
The studentship has complementary clinical and methodological elements, building on recent work of the supervisors, and the exciting opportunity to work with world-leading international clinical collaborators at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden.
The studentship has the following potential aims:
• Development of methods to obtain standardized/population averaged predictions, bringing a causal framework to cancer epidemiology with multi-state models
• Extending multi-state models to allow for clustering, such as when analysing recurrent events, where patient’s experience the same event multiple times, which may be accounted for using frailties/random effects
• Development of methods to handle multiple timescales in a general multi-state setting
• Application areas include a Swedish cohort of Hodgkin Lymphoma patients with potential for many other applications in cancer epidemiology
• The student will have the opportunity to develop software packages throughout the project, to ensure the methods developed within the PhD will be immediately available to other researchers
There will be some flexibility with the exact focus depending on the background and interests of the student.
Applications
Apply for Health Sciences Research using our online application system at https://www2.le.ac.uk/research-degrees/phd/applyphd?uol_r=78572a95 and indicate ‘CLS Studentship’ in the funding section
In the Research Proposal section of the application indicate the name of the Supervisor and Project you are applying for. You do not need to upload a proposal. Closing date is 4th April.
Funding Notes
The studentship will last for three years and cover:
i. Fees - full-time registration covering full UK/EU tuition fees for three years.
ii. Enhanced stipend - an annual tax-free stipend equivalent to Research Council rates £17,500 pa
iii. Research Training Support Grant – including travel allowance of £1,500pa.
iv. Writing Up Fees - writing-up fee (currently £100)
Home and EU students only are eligible for this award
Thanks,
Michael
Michael J. Crowther
Biostatistics Research Group
University of Leicester
www.mjcrowther.co.uk
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