My long-term career goal is to be an independent quantitative researcher focused on: (1) the development and implementation of statistical methodology to address the quantitative and analysis needs of proteomics research, and (2) directing these methods toward identification and quantification of the expressed proteins of head and neck cancer tissue. To achieve these goals, I have designed a career plan that augments my statistical expertise with knowledge of the biochemistry of proteomics and, in particular, the biology of head and neck cancers, hands-on experience in proteomics laboratories, including both two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE) and mass spectrometry-based platforms, and exposure to the realities of head and neck cancer as it relates to case management and patient care. I am committed to developing as an independent investigator with a research focus on developing statistical methodology in proteomics-based research for head and neck oncology. An NIDCR mentored quantitative research career development award (K25) is the ideal mechanism through which I will realize my career goals. Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is the sixth most common neoplasm in the world, and 5-year survival has remained at less than 50% for the last 30 years, despite therapeutic advances, in large part due to the late stage at which HNSCC patients present with their malignancies. The use of proteomics to identify, characterize and quantify protein profiles that differentiate healthy from diseased states offers new hope to HNSCC patients and others diagnosed with cancer having historically poor survival. Scientists and clinicians are optimistic that early disease detection and improved interventions will result directly from the identification of disease biomarkers through proteomic profiling. We hypothesize that Bayesian hierarchical mixture models provide a natural, flexible and powerful quantitative approach to classification and differential expression analyses of proteomics data.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Dental & Craniofacial Research (NIDCR)
Type
Mentored Quantitative Research Career Development Award (K25)
Project #
5K25DE016863-05
Application #
7662334
Study Section
NIDCR Special Grants Review Committee (DSR)
Program Officer
Hardwick, Kevin S
Project Start
2005-09-20
Project End
2010-08-31
Budget Start
2009-09-01
Budget End
2010-08-31
Support Year
5
Fiscal Year
2009
Total Cost
$144,811
Indirect Cost
Name
Medical University of South Carolina
Department
Internal Medicine/Medicine
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
183710748
City
Charleston
State
SC
Country
United States
Zip Code
29425
Wolf, Bethany J; Slate, Elizabeth H; Hill, Elizabeth G (2015) Ordinal Logic Regression: A classifier for discovering combinations of binary markers for ordinal outcomes. Comput Stat Data Anal 82:152-163
Hill, E G; Slate, E H (2014) A SEMI-PARAMETRIC BAYESIAN MODEL OF INTER- AND INTRA-EXAMINER AGREEMENT FOR PERIODONTAL PROBING DEPTH. Ann Appl Stat 8:331-351
Slate, Elizabeth H; Hill, Elizabeth G (2012) Discovering factors influencing examiner agreement for periodontal measures. Community Dent Oral Epidemiol 40 Suppl 1:21-7
Wolf, Bethany J; Hill, Elizabeth G; Slate, Elizabeth H et al. (2012) LBoost: A boosting algorithm with application for epistasis discovery. PLoS One 7:e47281
Wolf, Bethany J; Hill, Elizabeth G; Slate, Elizabeth H (2010) Logic Forest: an ensemble classifier for discovering logical combinations of binary markers. Bioinformatics 26:2183-9
Onicescu, Georgiana; Hill, Elizabeth G; Lawson, Andrew B et al. (2010) Joint disease mapping of cervical and male oropharyngeal cancer incidence in blacks and whites in South Carolina. Spat Spatiotemporal Epidemiol 1:133-41
Karpievitch, Yuliya V; Hill, Elizabeth G; Leclerc, Anthony P et al. (2009) An introspective comparison of random forest-based classifiers for the analysis of cluster-correlated data by way of RF++. PLoS One 4:e7087
Schwacke, John H; Hill, Elizabeth G; Krug, Edward L et al. (2009) iQuantitator: a tool for protein expression inference using iTRAQ. BMC Bioinformatics 10:342
Hill, Elizabeth G; Schwacke, John H; Comte-Walters, Susana et al. (2008) A statistical model for iTRAQ data analysis. J Proteome Res 7:3091-101
Karpievitch, Yuliya V; Hill, Elizabeth G; Smolka, Adam J et al. (2007) PrepMS: TOF MS data graphical preprocessing tool. Bioinformatics 23:264-5