UTA Researcher Aims to Improve Precision Medicine

Suvra Pal, PhD, MS

A University of Texas at Arlington research team has received a $450,000 grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences to use statistical machine learning to review patient data and better predict which patients will need additional treatments.

“With recent advances in screening, diagnosis and treatment, many diseases like cancer or cardiovascular disease can be identified in an early stage,” said Suvra Pal, associate professor of statistics in the Department of Mathematics. “Fortunately, a significant proportion of patients living with these diseases will clinically be cured, meaning they will never experience recurrence, metastasis or death due to their primary disease. Our research aims to better identify which patients will be cured so treatment teams can focus on those who will need additional interventions.”