The importance of biometry

Biology is forecast to be the science of the 21st century. The intrinsic variability of biological systems means that statisticians have the opportunity to play a leading role in interpreting the massive quantities of molecular data now being generated in the search for the secrets of life. The history of biometry - the study of measurement in biology goes back over 100 years. Biometrika, now a leading international statistics research journal, was first published in 1901, whilst the International Biometric Society, founded in 1947 with R A Fisher as first president, is a major international society bringing together over 6000 members with broad interest in the application of statistical and modelling techniques to the biological sciences.

Statisticians working in the biological sciences may be tackling problems in:
 

• Genetics - for example, analysing the heritability of a rare disease through genetic pedigrees, or the patterns of gene expression using microarrays
• Agriculture - for example, testing the performance of new crop varieties, or the efficacy of precision application for reducing pesticide inputs
• Epidemiology - for example, modelling the spread of citrus disease in an orchard, or estimating the prevalence of E. coli O157 in cattle
• Toxicology - for example, developing methods for reducing the number of animals in dose-response studies
• Ecology - for example, modelling population change of sea mammals.

Applications overlap with those for a medical statistician (for whom the term biostatistician is often used) and environmental statistician. As in other fields, one of the attractions of working as an applied statistician is the opportunity it gives to apply generic methods to a wide variety of different applications.