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Office of Collaborative Biostatistics

About

The Office of Collaborative Biostatistics (OCB) provides statistical leadership and collaboration for CCR's clinical activities and is involved in the design, review, conduct, monitoring, and statistical analyses of NCI CCR’s intramural clinical trials.

In addition to collaboration on clinical trials, the OCB provides a broad range of data analysis and consultation services to CCR. Other major collaborative efforts include clinical studies to identify important prognostic and treatment selection factors, evaluate diagnostic procedures, and develop improved staging systems. The section develops and implements novel statistical study designs and biometric methods related to the development and evaluation of new cancer and HIV/AIDS-related malignancy treatments.

Our goal is to provide biostatistical collaboration throughout the course of clinical research studies at CCR.

Staff

Head

Laura M. Yee, Ph.D. Dr. Yee's primary goal as a Ph.D.-level biostatistician is to improve the care, treatment, and lives of patients by designing innovative studies and by utilizing data. This evidence can be investigated in many forms, whether it’s through a rigorous clinical trial, validating a novel biomarker platform, or examining a long-term longitudinal cohort.

Dr. Yee joined CCR as the head of OCB in 2024. Prior to her time at CCR, she spent time as a Mathematical Statistician at NCI Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis and at the Center for Devices and Radiological Health at the US Food and Drug Administration. Dr. Yee received her Master’s and Ph.D. in Biostatistics from the University of Washington.

In addition to her duties at CCR, she is a statistical leader in the field of liquid biopsy and high-throughput assays in cancer. As such, she has collaborated as statistician on a number of studies involving collaborations in academic, industry, and government partnerships such as the Friends of Cancer Research Tumor Mutational Burden Project, the BloodPAC Protocols for Validation of NGS ctDNA assays, the Foundation for the NIH ctDNA Quality Control Materials project, and the MyeloMATCH AML/MDS trial.

Dr. Yee's statistical expertise has contributed to the field of oncology in terms of papers related to biostatistical and logistical considerations in the development of platform trials and considerations for the use of biomarkers in early phase trials. Her statistical research is primarily related to extensions of non-parametric statistics in survival data for marked variables.

Dr. Yee has served as an elected Chair and Program Chair for the American Statistical Association Section on Medical Devices and Diagnostics. She has also served on an array of scientific review committees evaluating intramural and extramural research at NIH as well as medical device applications at FDA.

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Laura Yee
Head
Laura M. Yee, Ph.D.

Program Staff

Hyoyoung Choo-Wosoba, Ph.D., Staff Scientist Biostatistician, joined the Office of Collaborative Biostatistics, Center for Cancer Research in National Cancer Institute (NCI) as a statistician in September 2021, to provide biostatistical leadership and consultation in NCI clinical trials. In recent years, she has been actively working with branches including the Vaccine Branch, Pediatric Oncology Branch, and Center for Immuno-Oncology.

Dr. Choo-Wosoba earned her Ph.D. from the department of Bioinformatics and Biostatistics at the University of Louisville under the supervision of Somnath Datta, Ph.D. Her doctoral research focused on developing statistical methodology to analyze zero-inflated clustered count data. After graduating, she gained experience in statistical research as a post-doctoral fellow under the mentorship of Paul Albert, Ph.D., a senior investigator and chief of Biostatistics Branch in Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, NCI. After that, Dr. Choo-Wosoba worked at the Food and Drug Administration as a statistical reviewer where she gained experience in clinical trials for two years.

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Hyoyoung Choo-Wosoba
Staff Scientist Biostatistician
Hyoyoung Choo-Wosoba, Ph.D.

David J. Liewehr, Statistician, received both a B.S and M.S. (entomology) from Colorado State University and was a Ph.D candidate at University of Maryland (Entomology).  He was a Biometrician at USDA for one year and a Medical Statistician at NIH-NCI since 1999.  David's statistical expertise includes the following: analysis of variance and covariance, multiple linear regression, and factorial treatment structure analysis (interaction effect).  His most frequent cancer research collaborations include the topics of hematology and immunology.

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Statistician
David J. Liewehr

Nicholas Micheletti, Biostatistician (Contractor), graduated with a Bachelor’s in Mathematics and Ancient Studies at Washington University in St. Louis. He went on to get a Master of Science in Biostatistics at Vanderbilt University. Nick's recent research has focused on innovations in cost-effectiveness analysis, specifically the benefits brought through the incorporation of second-generation p-values.

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Nicholas Micheletti
Biostatistician (Contr)
Nicholas Micheletti

Internal Policies and Resources for our CCR Collaborators

Information, policies, and resources can be found at our internal SharePoint site.

Please review this internal site before reaching out to us for a collaboration.

Contact

We welcome and encourage in person meetings. We find it makes collaboration easier, especially at the beginning of a project.

We are also easily accessible via email. Please refer to our Staff section for our email addresses.

MIB, ROB, UOB collaborators: Please note that biostatistical consultation for MIB, ROB, and UOB are covered by Dr. Erich Huang, whose contact information can be found on the DCTD BRP website.


We are located on the NCI Shady Grove Campus on the second floor of the West building.

Address: 9609 Medical Center Drive, Rockville, MD
Offices: 2W328, 2W332, 2W336, 2W338

Shuttle: Shuttle service from main campus to the Shady Grove campus is available for NIH faculty, staff, and contractors, via the NCI Shady Grove Express Shuttle. Information about the shuttle schedule can be found on the NCI website.