Dr. Gina-Maria Pomann, director of the Duke CTSI Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Research Design (BERD) Methods Core, will be discussing Collaborative Biostatistics at Duke. This session includes potential recruitment opportunities for MSS students and open to MSS students only.
Biostatistics and Team Science: Collaborative Research at Duke
The Duke Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Research Design (BERD) Methods Core builds on Duke’s Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) program. Initiated in 2006, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) established the CTSA program to provide academic medical centers the ability to establish robust research infrastructure for their faculty and institution. The Duke BERD Methods Core was designed to meet two essential goals: 1) link investigators with methodologists across Duke and affiliated institutions, and 2) collaborate with an interdisciplinary network of clinical and translational investigators by providing expertise in study design, real world evidence, implementation of methodology, and interpretation of results. Duke’s BERD model uses a team science-based, centralized resource of collaborative biostatisticians (CBs) that facilitates the ongoing evaluation of quantitative collaboration needs across the institution. It is imperative that CBs work closely with their clinical and/or translational collaborators as well as with research stakeholders (institution leadership, funding entity or sponsor, etc.) to ensure that results are interpreted appropriately to inform clinical practice and decision-making that will ultimately affect patient care or health outcomes. This requires CBs to provide high-quality analyses, facilitate reproducible research workflows, and communicate statistical results effectively in interdisciplinary collaborative environments. The Duke BERD Methods Core brings in skilled biostatisticians and provides the structure, training, and support to become highly successful CBs. A proposed roadmap to guide biostatistics collaborations and biostatisticians in this setting is presented and explicated