Massachusetts Alzheimer?s Disease Research Center: Data Core The Data Management and Statistics Core (Data Core) of the Massachusetts Alzheimer?s Disease Research Center (MADRC) provides state-of-the-art data management and statistical expertise for the MADRC and affiliated research studies, for collaborative efforts with other ADRCs, and for national AD/ADRD research initiatives. The Data Core is an essential component of the MADRC research enterprise as it facilitates scientific rigor, regulatory-compliance and strong connectedness across cores within our Center, and with NACC and others outside our Center. It serves to minimize the burdens of research by optimizing study efficiencies through subject selection, endpoint selection, facile and adaptive designs, as well as provides guidance on rigorous study design and analyses. The Data Core provides informatics expertise and assistance, including data-management, timely data transmission to NACC, and query and reporting support to all the MADRC Cores. We will contribute to MADRC?s goal of understanding heterogeneity through formal statistical modeling and use of latent variables, through statistical learning approaches that accommodate longitudinal and survival data under biased sampling and through analysis of omics data. We will contribute to MADRC?s goal of accelerating toward a cure by developing, importing and disseminating innovative statistical methods and informatics tools that will optimize resources. The Core aims to marshal resources (Aims 1,2) to support clinical, translational, and basic research in AD/ADRD by contributing statistical and informatics expertise to interdisciplinary teams. The Core aims to develop new strategies (Aims 3,4) to provide practical and efficient study designs and unbiased analytic methods, and to implement innovative informatics resources. The Core aims to build the future (Aims 5,6) by collaborating with the Research Education Component (REC) to train clinical and translational researchers in quantitative methods and to attract quantitative scientists to AD/ADRD research. The Data Core provides guidance on scientific rigor: it assists MADRC researchers with study design and ensures valid and accurate analyses of studies across all MADRC Cores. The Data Core also advises MADRC researchers on data quality, version control and tracking measures. It ensures all systems are secure and within the Partners IT Infrastructure. The Core promotes open and reproducible science by disseminating methodological innovations to the scientific community and through data and software sharing.
