Current Members
Director
Associate Director
Members
Xiuqing Guo, PhD
Soonil Kwon, PhD
Xiaohui Li, MD, MS
James Mirocha, MS
Meenu Sandhu
Xiaofei Yan, MS
Jinrui Cui, MS
Member Bios:
Zhenqiu Liu, PhD is the Director of Bioinformatics and Faculty in the Department of Medicine’s Hematology/Oncology Division, and the Department of Biomedical Sciences. Prior to joining Cedars-Sinai, he was an associate professor of bioinformatics at the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health and Greenebaum Cancer Center, University of Maryland School of Medicine. Dr. Liu’s research is in the broad area of bioinformatics, computational biology, and big data mining and has been funded by the National Cancer Institute and National Science Foundation. Currently his research is concentrating on survivorship prediction, biomarker identification, and pathway and network constructions with multi-source genomic data. Dr. Liu has extensive collaborative research experiences in laboratory investigations, biomarker evaluation, genomics, clinical and epidemiological researches. He earned a PhD in Operations Research with a concentration in data mining, as well as a master’s degree in Computer Science, from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. His postdoctoral training was at the Bioinformatics Cell, Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center in Fort Detrick, MD, and at the Department of Statistics at Ohio State University.
Xiao Zhang, PhD is a Research Scientist of the Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Research Center at Cedars-Sinai. Prior to joining the faculty at Cedars-Sinai, she was a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Biostatistics, University of Alabama-Birmingham. Dr. Zhang’s areas of research expertise include multivariate analysis using Bayesian methods, missing data analysis, survival analysis, and statistical methods in clinical trials. She is also interested in doing collaborative research with people from different scientific fields. Dr. Zhang earned her master's degree in Probability and Statistics from Beijing University of China and got her doctorate in biostatistics from University of California-Los Angeles.
Haibin Wang, PhD is a Research Scientist in the Research Informatics Core of the Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center since September 2010. Previous to that, Dr. Wang was a Senior Database Administrator at the Winship Cancer Institute, Emory University during the 2005-2010 period. He has extensive cancer informatics research, data management, and Web application programming experience in clinical trials. Dr. Wang has bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering (B.E., Huazhong University of Science and Technology), master’s degree in Electrical Engineering (M.E., Wuxi University of Light Industry) and master’s degree in Computer Science (M.S., Georgia State University). Dr. Wang earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Georgia State University in 2005. His research interests are focused on uncertainty data modeling in life science, clinical research informatics, grid computing, and Semantic Web.
Arkadiusz Gertych, PhD is an Assistant Professor and Principal Investigator in the Bioinformatics Laboratory, Department of Surgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. He received his doctorate degree with honors in 2003 at the Silesian University of Technology in Poland, where he was also appointed as an Assistant Professor till 2008. Dr. Gertych completed his post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Southern California in Department of Radiology & Biomedical Engineering in 2007. He has an interdisciplinary background and experience in the design and development of biomedical image analysis and pattern recognition applications in medicine, and was honored one Cum Laude and three Certification of Merit awards by Radiological Society of North America for scientific accomplishments. His current research focuses on studying epigenetic drug effects in cancer cell models via bioimage informatics approach, development of computerized analysis for quantification of skeletal growth, and designing of imaging-based methodologies for early detection and diagnosis of cervical cancer. Dr. Gertych serves also a reviewer for several scientific journals.
Miriam Nuno, PhD is a Senior Biostatistician in the Department of Neurosurgery. She completed her PhD in the department of Biological Statistics and Computational Biology at Cornell University in 2005 and Masters Degree in Applied Mathematics at Claremont Graduate University. Prior to joining Cedars, Dr. Nuño completed a postdoctoral position at Harvard School of Public Health and University of California Los Angeles department of Biostatistics. Her experience and interests include longitudinal data analysis, missing data methods, and multivariate analysis. Mathematical modeling, prediction and simulation in the areas of emerging infectious diseases and prevention are also strong interests and experience of Dr. Nuño.
Dror Berel, MS is a Senior Biostatistician at the Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute since March 2009. He received his M.S. in Statistics and Operational Research from Tel-Aviv University, Israel in 2005, and a M.S. in Molecular Biology from University of Houston, Texas in 2008. Mr. Berel has over 12 years of experience in academia, business industry and public health, where he gained a substantial experience in the fields of genetics, molecular evolution, epidemiology, clinical research and bioinformatics. Mr. Berel’s expertise includes development of general tools such as sample and survey methodologies, designing research methods, database management and information systems, model selection analysis and consulting. Recently he has been developing software applications in cancer phase I clinical trial using a new programming open source environment.
Catherine Bresee, MS is a Senior Biostatistician at the Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute. She received her M.S. in Biostatistics from the University of California at Los Angeles in 2008. Previously, Ms. Bresee had served as a research associate at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Michigan State University, and Lovelace Research Institute in New Mexico with 15 years of clinical and pre-clinical research experience. Her current interests are in clinical trial design, studies of quality of life and psychosocial well being, and longitudinal data analysis. Ongoing projects continue at Cedars-Sinai within the Wasserman Breast Center and the Women’s Cancer Research Institute as well as with non-cancer related projects in Psychiatry, Endocrinology, Surgery, Regenerative Medicine, and Pediatrics.
Quanlin Li, MS is a Senior Biostatistician at the Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute. He received an M.S. in Statistics from Duke University in 2008, and an M.S. in Environmental Science from Peking University, China in 2004. Before joining Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Mr. Li was a Statistician at U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Chapel Hill, NC, for 4 years. Mr. Li has strong statistical background and programming skills. He works with investigators on study design, database management and conducts statistical analysis. Ongoing projects include multi-state survival analysis, multiple imputation method for missing data, and developing software applications in cancer phase I clinical trial (EWOC).
Heidi Gransar, MS, CCRP is a Research Biostatistician in the Division of Cardiac Imaging and Nuclear Cardiology at the S. Mark Taper Foundation Imaging Center, Department of Imaging. She received her Master’s in Biostatistics from UCLA in 2001, and has been at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center for 10 years. She does statistical analysis, consulting, assists in study design, and produces datasets for researchers in her department. She occasionally gives lectures to fellows and student interns on statistical topics. Ms. Gransar mainly uses STATA and SAS.
Jie Yao, MS is a Research Biostatistician II at the Medical Genetics Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center since October 2008. He received his M.S. in Applied Biostatistics and Epidemiology from the University of Southern California in 2008. Mr. Yao has strong background in biostatistics and experience in SAS programming skill. He works with investigators on design, construction and maintenance of databases and performs increasingly complex statistical and/or genetic analyses and interprets results and reports. He has been playing a major role in several heart related population-based Genome wide association studies; family based GWAS and candidate gene studies.
Galen Cook-Wiens, MS is a Senior Biostatistician at the Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute. He received an M.S. in Biostatistics from the University of Michigan in 2006, and an M.S. in Mathematics from the University of Iowa in 2004. Before joining Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Mr. Cook-Wiens was a Senior Research Analyst at the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, KS, for five years. His experience includes longitudinal modeling, mixed models, propensity scoring and survival analysis. Current projects include working with regenerative medicine, the women’s cancer research institute and developing EWOC software, among others.
