Woman Leading the Way
Dr. Kim-Anh Do, professor and director of the Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Core
in the Prostate Cancer SPORE, has recently been appointed chair
in the Department of Biostatistics.
Kim-Anh Do, Ph.D., professor and director of the Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Core in the Prostate Cancer SPORE, has recently been appointed chair in the Department of Biostatistics. Dr. Do's impressive contributions to science have been fueled from her dedication and drive to constantly strive for improved methods of integrating science and technology.
Dr. Do's extensive education and training have contributed to the extraordinary level of expertise and skill set she possesses today. After receiving her Ph.D. at Stanford University in 1990, Dr. Do pursued a prestigious Australian Research Council postdoctoral fellowship at the Australian National University. From 1992-1999 she served as a tenured faculty member at the University of Canberra, the University of Queensland, and the Queensland Institute of Medical Research. In 1999, she joined MD Anderson Cancer Center as a tenured associate professor in Biostatistics and was promoted to professor in 2004. She has served as the director of the Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Core in the Prostate Cancer SPORE for 12 years.
Dr. Do hiking with her husband
The focus of her research is geared toward developing modern, computationally-intensive statistical approaches that are applicable to the integration of multi-platform, high-throughput data in the identification and validation of useful biomarkers. Dr. Do has developed and implemented computationally efficient statistical methods for clustering, classification, and mixture models with applications to bioinformatics data. These include microarray-based gene expression, protein expression, phage gene expression, protein expression, single nucleotide polymorphisms, and data obtained from reverse-phase protein arrays and molecular inversion probes. Dr. Do's immediate focus is directed toward developing novel quantitative methods and user-friendly software to achieve the accurate identification and validation of genetic biomarkers in multi-platform analyses of animal models and ultimately clinical trials.
Dr. Do is also actively involved in many committees and organizations both inside and outside of MD Anderson Cancer Center. Within the institution, she has served as chair of the Faculty Recruitment Committee for Biostatistics and as a member of many committees: the Search Committee for division head of Quantitative Sciences, Promotion and Tenure Committee, the Faculty Senate, the IRB, ACUF, IRG, MRP, and the Grievance Committee. She has also served on study sections for NIH, NSF, Susan Komen Foundation, the Australian Research Committee, and the Australian National Health & Medical Research Committee. She has actively participated in education activities in the joint PhD programs with Rice University, GSBS, Texas A&M; in particular, designing and teaching graduate courses, as well as being supervisor/advisor for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows.
Dr. Do and her family
As chair, Dr. Do seeks to lead and develop the Department of Biostatistics into a nationally and internationally recognized department as part of a multidisciplinary quantitative sciences program that can translate genomic knowledge and technology to bridge the gaps among biostatistics, bioinformatics, and computing, and their applications to biology, clinical medicine and public health. Her goal is to assemble and lead teams that reflect MD Anderson's commitment to integrating collaborative research and education.
Dr. Do, daughter of a South Vietnamese diplomat, spent her childhood in many different countries, eventually settling in Australia with her family. She credits her move from Australia to the United States, for both education and then employment, as a significant factor in her career. She and her husband, Bradley Broom, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, have a son at college in Colorado. Away from the office, Dr. Do balances work with tennis, yoga, biking, painting and ballroom dancing. The family visits their extended families in Australia annually where they visit the beautiful Queensland beaches or the Australian mountains.