Statistical methods for data in toxicology: DFG extends Research Training Group

The Research Training Group (RTG) 2624 ‘Biostatistical Methods for High-Dimensional Data in Toxicology’ is being extended by 4.5 years. The DFG will fund the RTG from October 2025 with around 4.2 million euros. The RTG is affiliated to the Faculty of Statistics at TU Dortmund University and forms the interface between toxicology and statistics.

Toxicologists at Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human Factors (IfADo) are collecting increasingly large volumes of data that provide information about genes, proteins and metabolic products. This involves special datasets such as omics data or gene expression data, where the activity of thousands of genes or cells is measured simultaneously. These data can help us to better understand the impact of chemical substances on the human body – provided they can be interpreted correctly.

“This is the starting point for our research: We in the Research Training Group are developing and applying new methods that make it possible to analyze such datasets more effectively.” says RTG spokesperson Professor Jörg Rahnenführer. Since 2021, the Research Training Group 2624 ‘Biostatistical Methods for High-Dimensional Data in Toxicology’ has set itself the goal of better investigating the genetic influence on the relationship between toxicological exposure and health. In the long term, this should serve as a basis for making toxicological risk predictions.

In the frame of the Research Training Group, statisticians from TU Dortmund University, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf and the University of Cologne are supervising doctoral students in cooperation with toxicologists from IfADo and the Leibniz Research Institute for Environmental Medicine (IUF) in Düsseldorf. The funds provided by the German Research Foundation are being used to finance a total of 30 postgraduate positions over the two funding phases.

Further information: https://grk2624.statistik.tu-dortmund.de/en/