Dr James Hensman awarded MRC Biostatistics Fellowship

Dr James Hensman, who is a post-doc in SITraN and Computer Science, has been awarded an MRC fellowship in biostatistics to study mathematical aspects of RNA sequencing.

James has worked in the cross-disciplinary group within SITraN for two years with Professor Neil Lawrence, advancing the use of probabilistic models of gene expression data from microarrays. High throughput sequencing of RNA (RNA-Seq) has the potential to unlock many secrets of the transcriptome, including alternative splicing of genes which is implicated by current studies in motor neurone disease.

James’ research fits well with current directions in the department of Neuroscience, SITraN has recently commissioned a sequencing machine. Development of probabilistic models of splicing and gene expression will give other researchers in the department and beyond the statistical tools to investigate transcriptome related phenomena in diseases, from data generated by such machines. The award strengthens the integration of the machine-learning and biostatistics group within SITraN.