Current Research Interests

Dr. Begg has long-standing interests in cancer epidemiology, health services research, clinical trials, and the statistical methods that support scientific studies in these disciplines. Currently his work is focused on two areas. In the first, he is developing statistical techniques for clonality assessment, used to distinguish independent second primary cancers from metastases on the basis of the somatic molecular profiles of the tumors. In the second area of investigation, he is developing methods for using somatic profiles of tumors to make inferences about the etiologic heterogeneity of tumor sub-types. He collaborates closely with various other members of the department on these projects, notably Audrey Mauguen, Irina Ostrovnaya, Venkatraman Seshan, Ronglai Shen and Emily Zabor. Dr. Begg also currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of the international scholarly journal Clinical Trials, the journal of the Society for Clinical Trials.