The University's Center for AIDS Research has received federal funding that now allows HIV/AIDS researchers throughout Harvard to have access to a team of biostatisticians in the medical quad. The team is known as the Center for AIDS Research Biostatistics Core, and includes a cadre of HSPH statisticians.
The core of biostatisticians will be available as consultants as needed for a variety of AIDS-related projects, ranging from grant applications to statistical analysis of medical or public health research studies.
The HSPH biostatisticians involved in the core are based at HSPH's Center for Biostatistics in AIDS Research (CBAR). They include Heather Ribaudo, associate director of the core; Ronald Bosch; Michael Hughes; Stephen Lagakos; Laura Smeaton; Julie Wu; Tianhua Niu, and LJ Wei. Niu and Wei, from the computational biology group, are genetics specialists.
CBAR's mission is to foster and conduct statistical scientific activity in clinical trials and other public health research in HIV disease, promote innovative strategies for medical interventions and study design, and provide education and training relevant to statistical aspects of HIV disease research.
CBAR's largest project is the Statistical and Data Analysis Center of the AIDS Clinical Trials Group. The group has been responsible for the design, monitoring, and analysis of most of the federally funded clinical trials of HIV in the U.S.
The inclusion of CBAR statisticians in the larger Center for AIDS Research core means that researchers doing HIV research will have a place where they can go to get almost immediate biostatistical support for grants, manuscripts, or data analysis, Ribaudo said.
She added, "We have the expertise to improve their grants. We can provide a statistical expertise for manuscript and abstract submission, and a whole range of other biostatistical projects, including analysis."
Researchers can also seek help in understanding new statistical software, and the biostatisticians will be available to instruct researchers in statistical methods -- providing presentations and seminars on analysis techniques, study design, and monitoring, computer programs, and basic bioinformatics tools, she said.
The biostatisticians will be funded through the Harvard University Center for AIDS Research grant, and so they will be available to researchers free of charge, she noted.
Ribaudo will be coordinating the work of the team of biostatisticians, so individual researchers from HSPH or other non-HMS Harvard schools may contact her directly at 617-432-2897 or via email ( biostat_cfar@hsph.harvard.edu). She said that she will either provide statistical support right there over the phone for minor queries or arrange for support from one of the other biostatisticians. However, she said that if an individual researcher is already familiar with one of the Biostatistics Core members, the researcher may contact that statistician directly.
"This is really an exciting opportunity for us to collaborate with researchers throughout the School and get more involved in other AIDS work that's been going on at the School,'' she said.
—ML
Copyright, 2007, President and Fellows of Harvard College
