Paul Edlefsen

Paul Edlefsen is a Principal Staff Scientist at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and holds the position of Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Biostatistics at the University of Washington's School of Public Health. His work focuses on advancing infectious disease vaccine research through interdisciplinary approaches that integrate biology, biostatistics, and bioinformatics. He leads the Edlefsen Group at Fred Hutch, which collaborates with multiple labs and consortia on globally relevant problems in vaccine development.

His educational background includes a PhD in Statistics (2009) and an AM in Statistics (2005) from Harvard University, and a BA in Computer Science (2000) from Wesleyan University. During his academic training, he also held a position as a Harvard College Fellow.

Dr. Edlefsen's research program spans multiple critical areas of infectious disease research. His primary focus is on the genomics of pathogens, particularly HIV-1, with the goal of developing both prophylactic vaccines and cures. He has made significant contributions to sieve analysis methods, which examine pathogen sequence variation across clinical trial arms to identify evidence of vaccine-induced immunity. His methodological work encompasses three main areas: developments in Dempster-Shafer theory with Art Dempster, methods for inferring parameters of profile hidden Markov models applied to viral sequences, and sieve analysis methodology that accounts for subject-level heterogeneity.

His publication record demonstrates consistent productivity in high-impact areas of HIV vaccine research, statistical methodology, and virology. Recent work shows a strong emphasis on understanding viral evolution in response to vaccine pressure, immune responses to co-infections (particularly SIV/HIV with other pathogens), and developing novel statistical methods for analyzing vaccine trial data. His research often bridges clinical applications with advanced statistical theory, reflecting his dual expertise in both domains.

As a clinical trials statistician, Dr. Edlefsen works with multiple major HIV research networks including the HIV Vaccine Trials Network, HIV Prevention Trials Network, HIV Microbicide Trials Network, and the Gates Foundation's Coalition for AIDS Vaccine Discovery. His group at Fred Hutch maintains strong collaborative ties with researchers around the globe, contributing statistical and computational expertise to numerous vaccine development efforts.

The Edlefsen Group operates as a small but diverse team of researchers who cross expertise barriers to communicate effectively about complex topics in statistics, bioinformatics, and infectious disease biology. The group actively participates in study design, grant writing, and reproducible data analysis, working closely with vaccine researchers throughout the scientific process. They welcome collaborations and maintain strong ties throughout the research community with the primary goal of advancing infectious disease vaccine research to improve public health worldwide.