A Day in the Life Of... Serigne Lo

9 February 2018

Serigne understands that biostatistics is an integral part of the multidisciplinary field of melanoma research.

“My typical day is busy. I provide support to researchers in the form of data analysis, reporting and — most importantly — in framing research questions into testable hypotheses. In evidence based medicine, randomised clinical trial is considered gold standard to test the effectiveness of an intervention or new treatment.

As a biostatistician, I help design the framework for these clinical trials which involves determining the number of patients needed to compare two or more treatments, defining best criteria for efficacy and/or safety that answer the research question(s) based on the best available evidence.

Biostatistics is an integral part of a multidisciplinary approach to meet the challenges of the dynamic field of melanoma research. I really enjoy developing collaboration and continuously working with MIA clinicians, researchers and students in research projects.

I also manage the Research and Biostatistics Group at MIA which consists of two biostatisticians, a data analyst and six data-managers.

The group is in charge of maintaining Melanoma Research Database v2 (MRD2), the world largest single collection of melanoma information that holds more than 45,000 individual patient records.

I have a fantastic team who is great to work with”.