Peter F. Thall
Department of Biostatistics, Division of Discovery Science
About Dr. Thall
Peter F. Thall is the Anise J. Sorrell Professor in the Department of Biostatistics at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, where he has been a Science Faculty member since 1990. He is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association (ASA) and the Society for Clinical Trials, and received the Owen Award in 2014. Dr. Thall has pioneered the application of Bayesian methods in medical research. He is an author of over 260 papers and book chapters in the statistical and medical literature, co-authored the 2016 Chapman & Hall book "Bayesian Designs for Phase I-II Clinical Trials" and authored the 2020 Springer book ‘Statistical Remedies for Medical Researchers.’ He has designed hundreds of clinical trials in numerous areas of oncology. He has presented over 230 invited talks, and 34 short courses, served as an Associate Editor for J. National Cancer Institute, Statistics in Medicine, Statistics in Biosciences, Clinical Trials, and Biometrics, and is an ASA Media Expert.
Present Title & Affiliation
Primary Appointment
Professor, Department of Biostatistics, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX
Research Interests
Bayesian statistics
Clinical trial design
Medical decision analysis
Personalized medicine
Dynamic treatment regimes
Education & Training
Degree-Granting Education
| 1975 | Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA, PHD, Statistics & Probability |
| 1973 | Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA, MS, Statistics |
| 1971 | Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA, BS, Mathematics |
Honors & Awards
| 2020 | Awarded best paper published in Biometrics in 2019: Chapple and Thall, Biometrics 85, 371-381, 2019 |
| 2015 | Fellow, American Statistical Association |
| 2014 | Fellow, Society for Clinical Trials |
| 2014 | Owen Award, San Antonio Chapter of the American Statistical Association |
Selected Publications
Peer-Reviewed Articles
- Lin R, Thall PF, Yuan Y. A phase I-II basket trial design to optimize dose-schedule regimes based on delayed outcomes. Bayesian Anal 16(1):179-202, 2021. e-Pub 2020. PMID: 34267857.
- Murray TA, Thall PF, Schortgen F, Zohar S, Asfar P, Katsahian S. Robust adaptive incorporation of historical control data in design of a randomized controlled trial to evaluate external cooling in treatment of septic shock. Bayesian Analysis 16:825-844, 2021.
- Lee J, Thall PF, Msaouel P. Precision Bayesian phase I-II dose-finding based on utilities tailored to prognostic subgroups. Stat Med 40(24):5199-5217, 2021. e-Pub 2021. PMID: 34636054.
- Lin R, Thall PF, Yuan Y. An adaptive trial design to optimize dose-schedule regimes with delayed outcomes. Biometrics 76:304-315, 2020. e-Pub 2019. PMID: 31273750.
- Liu E, Marin D, Banerjee P, Macapinlac H, Thall PF, Rezvani K, et al. IL-15 armored CAR-transduced NK cells against CD19 positive B cell tumors. New England Journal of Medicine 382:545-553, 2020.
- Chapple AG, Thall PF. A hybrid phase I-II/III clinical trial design allowing dose re-optimization in phase III. Biometrics 75(2):371-381; (Discussion 382-388, Rejoinder 389-391), 2019. e-Pub 2019. PMID: 30367457.
- Xu Y, Thall PF, Hua W, Andersson BS. Bayesian nonparametric survival regression for optimizing precision dosing of intravenous busulfan in allogeneic stem cell transplantation. J R Stat Soc Ser C Appl Stat 68(3):809-828, 2019. e-Pub 2018. PMID: 31467455.
- Lee J, Thall PF, Lin SH. Bayesian Semiparametric Joint Regression Analysis of Recurrent Adverse Events and Survival in Esophageal Cancer Patients. Ann Appl Stat 13(1):221-247, 2019. e-Pub 2019. PMID: 31681453.
- Lee J, Thall PF, Rezvani K. Optimizing natural killer cell doses for heterogeneous cancer patients on the basis of multiple event times. J R Stat Soc Ser C Appl Stat 68(2):461-474, 2019. e-Pub 2018. PMID: 31105345.
- Thall PF, Ursino M, Baudouin V, Alberti C, Zohar S. Bayesian treatment comparison using parametric mixture priors computed from elicited histograms. Stat Methods Med Res 28:404-418, 2019. e-Pub 2017. PMID: 28870123.
- Murray TA, Yuan Y, Thall PF, Elizondo JH, Hofstetter WL. A utility-based design for randomized comparative trials with ordinal outcomes and prognostic subgroups. Biometrics 74:1095-1103, 2018. e-Pub 2018. PMID: 29359314.
- Murray TA, Yuan Y, Thall PF. A Bayesian Machine Learning Approach for Optimizing Dynamic Treatment Regimes. J Am Stat Assoc 113(523):1255-1267, 2018. e-Pub 2018. PMID: 30739965.
- Wathen JK, Thall PF. A simulation study of outcome adaptive randomization in multi-arm clinical trials. Clin Trials 14(5):432-440, 2017. e-Pub 2017. PMID: 28982263.
- Chapple AG, Vannucci M, Thall PF, Lin SH. Bayesian variable selection for a semi-competing risks model with three hazard functions. Computational Statistics and Data Analysis 112:170-185, 2017. e-Pub 2017. PMID: 29033478.
- Morita S, Thall PF, Takeda K. A simulation study of methods for selecting subgroup-specific doses in phase 1 trials. Pharm Stat 16(2):143-156, 2017. e-Pub 2017. PMID: 28111916.
- Murray TA, Thall PF, Yuan Y, McAvoy S, Gomez DR. Robust treatment comparison based on utilities of semi-competing risks in non-small-cell lung cancer. J Am Stat Assoc 112:11-23, 2017. e-Pub 2017. PMID: 28943681.
- Xu Y, Thall PF, Müller P, Mehran RJ. A decision-theoretic comparison of treatments to resolve air leaks after lung surgery based on nonparametric modeling. Bayesian Anal 12(3):639-652, 2017. e-Pub 2016. PMID: 28959372.
- Thall PF, Mueller P, Xu Y, Guindani M. Bayesian nonparametric statistics: A new toolkit for discovery in cancer research. Pharm Stat 16:414-423, 2017. e-Pub 2017. PMID: 28677272.
- Murray TA, Thall PF, Yuan Y. Utility-based designs for randomized comparative trials with categorical outcomes. Stat Med 35(24):4285-4305, 2016. e-Pub 2016. PMID: 27189672.
- Xu Y, Müller P, Wahed AS, Thall PF. Bayesian nonparametric estimation for dynamic treatment regimes with sequential transition times (with discussion). J Am Stat Assoc 111(515):921-950, 2016. e-Pub 2016. PMID: 28018015.
- Lee J, Thall PF, Ji Y, Müller P. Bayesian Dose-Finding in Two Treatment Cycles Based on the Joint Utility of Efficacy and Toxicity. J Am Stat Assoc 110(510):711-722, 2015. PMID: 26366026.
- Thall PF, Nguyen HQ, Zohar S, Maton P. Optimizing sedative dose in preterm infants undergoing treatment for respiratory distress syndrome. J Am Stat Assoc 109(507):931-943, 2014. PMID: 25368435.
- Jin IH, Liu S, Thall PF, Yuan Y. Using data augmentation to facilitate conduct of phase I/II clinical trials with delayed outcomes. J Am Stat Assoc 109(506):525-536, 2014. PMID: 25382884.
- Thall PF, Nguyen HQ, Braun TM, Qazilbash MH. Using joint utilities of the times to response and toxicity to adaptively optimize schedule-dose regimes. Biometrics 69(3):673-682, 2013. e-Pub 2013. PMID: 23957592.
- Wahed AS, Thall PF. Evaluating joint effects of induction-salvage treatment regimes on overall survival in acute leukemia. J R Stat Soc Ser C Appl Stat 62(1):67-83, 2013. PMID: 24014891.
- Wang L, Rotnitzky A, Lin X, Millikan RE, Thall PF. Evaluation of viable dynamic treatment regimes in a sequentially randomized trial of advanced prostate cancer. J Am Stat Assoc 107(498):493-508, (with discussion, pages 509-517), 2012. PMID: 22956855.
- Thall PF, Nguyen HQ, Wang X, Wolff JE. A hybrid geometric phase II/III clinical trial design based on treatment failure time and toxicity. J Stat Plan Inference 142(4):944-955, 2012. PMID: 22228921.
- Thall PF, Nguyen HQ. Adaptive randomization to improve utility-based dose-finding with bivariate ordinal outcomes. J Biopharm Stat 22(4):785-801, 2012. PMID: 22651115.
- Thall PF, Szabo A, Nguyen HQ, Amlie-Lefond CM, Zaidat OO. Optimizing the concentration and bolus of a drug delivered by continuous infusion. Biometrics 67(4):1638-46, 2011. e-Pub 2011. PMID: 21401568.
- Morita S, Thall PF, Bekele BN, Mathew P. A Bayesian hierarchical mixture model for platelet derived growth factor receptor phosphorylation to improve estimation of progression-free survival in prostate cancer. J R Stat Soc Ser C Appl Stat 59(1):19-34, 2009. PMID: 20390057.
- Thall PF, Nguyen HQ, Estey EH. Patient-specific dose finding based on bivariate outcomes and covariates. Biometrics 64(4):1126-36, 2008. e-Pub 2008. PMID: 18355387.
- Wathen JK, Thall PF, Cook JD, Estey EH. Accounting for patient heterogeneity in phase II clinical trials. Stat Med 27(15):2802-15, 2008. e-Pub 2007. PMID: 17948869.
- Morita S, Thall PF, Müller P. Determining the effective sample size of a parametric prior. Biometrics 64(2):595-602, 2008. e-Pub 2007. PMID: 17764481.
- Braun TM, Thall PF, Nguyen H, de Lima M. Simultaneously optimizing dose and schedule of a new cytotoxic agent. Clin Trials 4(2):113-124, 2007. PMID: 17456511.
- Thall PF, Wooten LH, Logothetis CJ, Millikan RE, Tannir NM. Bayesian and frequentist two-stage treatment strategies based on sequential failure times subject to interval censoring. Stat Med 26(26):4687-4702, 2007. PMID: 17427204.
- Thall PF, Wooten LH, Shpall EJ. A geometric approach to comparing treatments for rapidly fatal diseases. Biometrics 62(1):193-201, 2006. PMID: 16542246.
- Thall PF, Wathen JK. Covariate-adjusted adaptive randomization in a sarcoma trial with multi-stage treatments. Stat Med 24(13):1947-1964, 2005. PMID: 15806621.
- Thall PF, Sung H-G, Estey EH. Selecting therapeutic strategies based on efficacy and death in multi-course clinical trials. J American Statistical Assoc 97:29-39, 2002.
- Thall PF, Simon RM, Estey EH. Bayesian sequential monitoring designs for single-arm clinical trials with multiple outcomes. Stat Med 14(4):357-379, 1995. PMID: 7746977.
Invited Articles
- Thall PF. Adaptive enrichment designs in clinical trials. Annual Review of Statistics and Its Application 8:393-411, 2021. e-Pub 2021.
- Lin R, Thall PF, Yuan Y. BAGS: A Bayesian adaptive group sequential trial design with subgroup-specific survival comparisons. J American Statistical Association 116:322-334, 2021.
- Thall PF. Bayesian cancer clinical trial designs with subgroup-specific decisions. Contemp Clin Trials:105860, 2020. PMID: 31678411.
- Thall PF. Bayesian utility-based for subgroup-specific randomized treatment comparison and early phase dose optimization in oncology clinical trials, 2019.
- Müller P, Xu Y, Thall PF. Clinical trial design as a decision problem. Appl Stoch Models Bus Ind 33(3):296-301, 2017. e-Pub 2017. PMID: 29200977.
- Thall PF. Bayesian adaptive dose-finding based on efficacy and toxicity. J. Statistical Research 14:187-202, 2012.
- Thall PF. Bayesian models and decision algorithms for complex early phase clinical trials. Stat Sci 25(2):227-44, 2010. PMID: 21318084.
- Thall PF. A review of phase 2-3 clinical trial designs. Lifetime Data Anal 14(1):37-53, 2008. e-Pub 2007. PMID: 17763973.
- Thall PF, Wathen JK. Practical Bayesian adaptive randomisation in clinical trials. Eur J Cancer 43(5):859-66, 2007. e-Pub 2007. PMID: 17306975.
Grant & Contract Support
| Title: | Cancer Center Support Grant (CCSG) - Biostatistics Resource Group (BRG) |
| Funding Source: | NIH/NCI |
| Role: | Biostatistician |
| Title: | Therapy of CML - Biostatistics Core (PC-B) |
| Funding Source: | NIH/NCI |
| Role: | Core Director |
| Title: | Immunologic Checkpoint Blockade and Adoptive Cell Transfer in Cancer Therapy |
| Funding Source: | American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) |
| Role: | Co-Investigator |
| Title: | Statistical Methods for Complex Cancer Trials |
| Funding Source: | NIH/NCI |
| Role: | Principal Investigator |
| Title: | Improving Cord Blood Transplantation (Core B-Biostatistics) |
| Funding Source: | NIH/NCI |
| Role: | Core Leader |
| Title: | Off-the-shelf engineered NK cells for the treatment of AML |
| Funding Source: | NIH/NCI |
| Role: | Collaborator |
| Title: | Novel Cord Blood-Derived Cellular Therapies |
| Funding Source: | NIH/NCI |
| Role: | Core B Director |
| Title: | Bayesian Methods for Complex Precision Biotherapy Trials in Oncology |
| Funding Source: | NIH/NCI |
| Role: | PD/PI |
Patient Reviews
CV information above last modified August 07, 2024