Starting date: January 2021
Work Programme
The Biostatistics and Data Integration Team (BDI):
- leads the development and application of biostatistical and bioinformatic methods for the analysis and integration of lifestyle and molecular data in cancer epidemiology studies;
- provides statistical support for research conducted within NME;
- oversees the management and sharing of epidemiological data within the EPIC cohort and other NME studies; and
- promotes research reproducibility through the sharing of relevant data and codes.
Specific current projects include research on:
- statistical methods for the analysis of molecular data, including the definition of procedures for data pre-processing and normalization of metabolomics, proteomics, genetic, and other molecular data, as well as supervised and unsupervised machine learning methods for the interrogation and integration of molecular data in cancer research;
- federated analyses to conduct multicentre collaborative studies and mitigate challenges related to data protection regulations when moving individual-level data across cancer institutes;
- molecular signatures of lifestyle factors and their relationship with cancer;
- lifestyle factors and cancer risk, including the definition of healthy lifestyle scores and the analysis of longitudinal data to investigate the impact of adopting healthy choices during adulthood;
- mediation analysis to investigate possible mechanisms underlying the carcinogenic effect of established cancer risk factors; and
- genetic epidemiological analyses (genome-wide association studies [GWAS]; Mendelian randomization; co-localization) to investigate causal relationships.
Team Composition
Team Leader: Dr Vivian Viallon, Nutrition and Metabolism Branch (NME), IARC
Email: [email protected]
Team members:
Dr Alem Gebremariam Abraha (Postdoctoral Scientist, NME)
Ms Carine Biessy (Statistical Assistant, NME)
Ms Géraldine Bocquet-Dumont (Research Assistant, NME)
Dr Niki Dimou (Postdoctoral Scientist, NME)
Dr Ali Farnudi (Postdoctoral Scientist, NME)
Dr Pietro Ferrari (Branch Head, NME)
Dr Heinz Freisling (Scientist, NME)
Mr Quan Gan (Doctoral Student, NME)
Dr Matthew Lee (Postdoctoral Scientist, NME)
Dr Komodo Matta (Postdoctoral Scientist, NME)
Mr Arthur Quenechdu (Research Assistant, NME)
Ms Fanélie Vasson (Doctoral Student, NME)
Ms Diana Wu (Doctoral Student, NME)
Ms Karina Zaluski (Administrative Assistant, NME)
Dr Yue Zhai (Postdoctoral Scientist, NME)
Key networks: European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC), UK Biobank (UKB), National Cancer Institute (NCI) Cohort Consortium, Northern Sweden Health and Disease Study (NSDHS)
Key funding: Institut national du Cancer (INCa), Ligue nationale contre le Cancer (LNCC), United States National Institutes of Health (NIH), World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF), European Commission
Key publications
- Matta K, Viallon V, Botteri E, Peveri G, Dahm C, Nannsen AØ, et al. (2024). Healthy lifestyle change and all-cause and cancer mortality in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition cohort. BMC Med. 22(1):210. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-024-03362-7 PMID:38807179
- Breeur M, Stepaniants G, Keski-Rahkonen P, Rigollet P, Viallon V (2024). Optimal transport for automatic alignment of untargeted metabolomic data. eLife. 12:RP91597. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.91597 PMID:38896449
- Viallon V, Freisling H, Matta K, Nannsen AØ, Dahm CC, Tjønneland A, et al. (2024). On the use of the healthy lifestyle index to investigate specific disease outcomes. Sci Rep. 14(1):16330. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-66772-w PMID:39009699
- Botteri E, Peveri G, Berstad P, Bagnardi V, Chen SLF, Sandanger TM, et al. (2023). Changes in lifestyle and risk of colorectal cancer in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition. Am J Gastroenterol. 118(4):702–11. https://doi.org/10.14309/ajg.0000000000002065 PMID:36227801
- Mayén AL, Viallon V, Botteri E, Proust-Lima C, Bagnardi V, Batista V, et al. (2022). A longitudinal evaluation of alcohol intake throughout adulthood and colorectal cancer risk. Eur J Epidemiol. 37(9):915–29. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10654-022-00900-6 PMID:36063305
- Breeur M, Ferrari P, Dossus L, Jenab M, Johansson M, Rinaldi S, et al. (2022). Pan-cancer analysis of pre-diagnostic blood metabolite concentrations in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition. BMC Med. 20(1):351. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-022-02553-4 PMID:36258205
- Ballout N, Garcia C, Viallon V (2021). Sparse estimation for case-control studies with multiple disease subtypes. Biostatistics. 22(4):738–55. https://doi.org/10.1093/biostatistics/kxz063 PMID:31977036
- Loftfield E, Stepien M, Viallon V, Trijsburg L, Rothwell JA, Robinot N, et al. (2021). Novel biomarkers of habitual alcohol intake and associations with risk of pancreatic and liver cancers and liver disease mortality. J Natl Cancer Inst. 113(11):1542–50. https://doi.org/10.1093/jnci/djab078 PMID:34010397
- Viallon V, His M, Rinaldi S, Breeur M, Gicquiau A, Hemon B, et al. (2021). A new pipeline for the normalization and pooling of metabolomics data. Metabolites. 11(9):631. https://doi.org/10.3390/metabo11090631 PMID:34564446
- Naudin S, Viallon V, Hashim D, Freisling H, Jenab M, Weiderpass E, et al. (2020). Healthy lifestyle and the risk of pancreatic cancer in the EPIC study. Eur J Epidemiol. 35(10):975–86. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10654-019-00559-6 PMID:31564045