Meet Dr Qing Zhong who is Group Leader of the Cancer Data Science Team.

What drew you to study computer science?

I developed my love for computers in 1998 when I was given my first computer. I was amazed by the whole new world that was open to me. In order to win computer games, I tried to hack them but failed. I realized that understanding programming was vital to archive this goal, which led to my pursuance of a computer science degree.

Why did you decide to move from Zurich to work at CMRI?

I was even reluctant to move from one district to another in Zurich, but made a three-day decision to move to Sydney. The reason was probably a linear combination of three factors: CMRI reputation, career advancement, and Sydneyness.

What do you hope to achieve as Group Leader, Cancer Data Science?

I’d like to build a multidisciplinary team with researchers from different backgrounds (bioinformatics, statistics and data science), who want to achieve the same goals such as building up data-driven, evidence-based cancer diagnosis and treatment decision tools for scientists and clinicians.

What excites you about the ProCan project?

ProCan strives to analyse 70,000 samples of all types of cancer from all over the world in a period of 7 years. The volume, the variety, and the velocity of the data will shape a treasure island for any data scientist in the world. I am excited to be leading a team that generates knowledge from those data.

Learn more about Procan here.