Jeremy L. Warner MD, MS, FAMIA, FASCO is a Professor of Medicine and Professor of Biostatistics at Brown University, Associate Director of Data Science for the Legorreta Cancer Center, and Director of the Brown/Lifespan Center for Clinical Cancer Informatics and Data Science (CCIDS). His clinical specialty is malignant hematology, and he practices at Rhode Island Hospital. His primary research goal is to make sense of the structured and unstructured data present in electronic health records and clinical knowledge bases to directly improve outcomes for people living with cancer. He is the Chief Technology Officer of HemOnc.org LLC, which hosts the largest freely available wiki of anticancer regimens (HemOnc.org) and the derivative HemOnc knowledgebase. He is one of the founders of the COVID-19 and Cancer Consortium (CCC19) and directs the CCC19 Research Coordinating Center. He is the Editor-in-Chief of JCO Clinical Cancer Informatics.
What kind of work are you excited about at the Legorreta Cancer Center?
I am excited about the many ways that data are becoming central to the care of patients with cancer. These include data generated from cancer tissues such as genomic and proteomic profiles, and data generated from the routine care of patients, including those data streams sourced directly from patients through wearables and other devices. Transformation of these data streams into actionable knowledge is of central importance to the data science strategy of the cancer center. The other side of this coin is the promise of data-driven and evidence-driven decision support. Implementation of decision support systems including those informed by large language models will become of increasing importance in the upcoming years.
How do you see the role of biostatistics in cancer/biomedical research broadly?
I see biostatistics playing a central role in the understanding and thoughtful manipulation of data towards the transformation into knowledge. A deep understanding of the completeness and accuracy of data, when and if imputation methods can be used on biomedical data sources, and whether the biases present in any biomedical dataset can be mitigated in a satisfactory manner are central questions for biostatisticians and bioinformaticians. It should be noted that I see a lot of overlap between the quasi-separated fields of biostatistics, epidemiology, and biomedical informatics.
Do you have any Ideas for increased engagement between biostatistics and the cancer center?
I have a lot of ideas which I look forward to further developing in the upcoming year! As the Associate Director of Data Science for the cancer center, my foremost goal is to build the community, which very much includes any member of the biostatistics department who is doing cancer-related work. I strongly believe that a rising tide lifts all boats, and increased collaboration between biostatisticians, clinicians, and others can only push our center further towards success.