Sound experimental design is a core prerequisite for rigorous and reproducible research, which forms the necessary foundation for clinical breakthroughs, and yet it is too infrequently taught as a formal part of undergraduate and graduate training. ?PREPaRED: Producing Reproducible Experiments by Promoting Reverse Experimental Design,? a collaborative educational partnership between the Global Biological Standards Institute, Harvard Medical School, and Vanderbilt University, will create freely-available online curricular materials that teach experimental design with a focus on specific emerging data- and resource-rich methodologies (specifically, live cell imaging, high-throughput functional screening, and disease modeling). In Years 2?5 of the grant, we will deploy these materials in blended learning formats at Summer Institutes for about 30 undergraduates and 90 graduate students each year. We will also train around 100 faculty each year to teach experimental design using PREPaRED materials, and support the creation of additional training content. By integrating structured mentorship and career development, our programs will train students to apply what they learn to their own research and teaching careers. Recruiting a diverse pool of students and faculty to PREPaRED will help build a diverse and skilled biomedical workforce. PREPaRED will utilize a ?reverse experimental design? strategy that begins with the ?product,? the data produced using specific experimental methods. Using real data, approaches to analysis will be taught first, emphasizing relevant biological variables critical to sound experimental design. Additionally, Faculty Workshops will demonstrate various ways the materials can be incorporated into experimental design classes at faculty?s home institutions. PREPaRED combines the three core IPERT components of skills development, structured mentoring, and outreach so that (1) diverse students in PREPaRED courses will acquire the knowledge and skills required to design and report rigorous, well-controlled experiments that consider relevant biological variables, and (2) diverse faculty will learn how to incorporate PREPaRED materials into their own courses and how to build new material. Furthermore, PREPaRED materials will form the basis for an expandable repository of examples from a wide range of experimental approaches and support formal education in experimental design across the nation. By combining these approaches and materials, the PREPaRED program will improve the rigor and reproducibility of biological research and help build a diverse and skilled biomedical workforce.
Sound experimental design is a core prerequisite for rigorous and reproducible research, which forms the necessary foundation for clinical breakthroughs. In the programs developed in this proposal, researchers will learn how to execute sound experimental designs for their own projects while simultaneously learning about novel and rapidly evolving research methodologies, thus improving research quality and meeting a critical training need. Faculty will learn how to incorporate these materials into their own teaching, and the lectures, problem sets, and case studies built for this curriculum will seed an expandable repository of teaching materials that supports formal education in experimental design across the nation.
