Marlena S. Bannick

Hello! I am an Assistant Professor in the Biostatistics Program, Public Health Sciences Division at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center. The overarching goal of my research is to design clinical trials that are flexible, adaptable, and efficient, while maintaining a focus on statistical rigor, clinical relevance, and patient safety. I am especially motivated by settings in which trials face practical (e.g., small populations) or scientific complexity (e.g., novel immunotherapies).

I am particularly interested in oncology clinical trials. At Fred Hutch, I am involved with the SWOG Cancer Research Network. I also collaborate with Seattle Children’s on clinical trials in pediatric cell and gene therapies. I completed the FDA-OCE-ASA Educational Fellowship in oncology drug development and regulatory policy.

I received my PhD from the Department of Biostatistics at the University of Washington, advised by Dr. Ting Ye. A core theme of my methodological work has been covariate adjustment to increase efficiency in randomized trials. Our package RobinCar for covariate adjustment in randomized clinical trials – and its sister package RobinCar2 – are now available on CRAN!