Recent advances in biotechnology, particularly in high-throughput genomics, have fuelled an explosive demand for trained Biostatisticians. A rapidly growing number of biomedical studies are generating extremely large-scale and high-dimensional data using the new technologies. This created an expanding gap between demand and supply of able biostatisticians, and poses a great challenge to the existing biostatistics training systems. To meet the challenge we propose, as part of the NHLBI Program for Summer Institute in Biostatistics (SIBS), to develop a 6-week Summer Institute for Biostatistics Research in Disease and Genetic Epidemiology (BRIDGE) at Washington University School of Medicine (WUSM). We will build on the many existing training programs and resources established by the Division of Biostatistics at WUSM and its affiliates, and develop a dynamic training program to effectively reach out to the group of quantitatively oriented students in their late college career. We will introduce them to the science of biostatistical methods and applications;inspire their curiosity and interest in modern biostatistics research and practice;and help them shape a prospective career in the field. Namely, the goal is to build bridges to a bright future in biostatistics. These educational objectives are achieved through 4 specific aims: (1) Develop the curriculum and course material for the didactic component;(2) Develop a companion summer practicum for gaining students first-hand biostatistics """"""""career"""""""" experience;(3) Conduct the summer institute using the """"""""summer training with year-long education"""""""" approach to eventually shape their career choice toward biostatistics;and (4) Evaluate the performance and impact of the program for enhancement and guidelines for future development. We will use an """"""""enriched problem-based training"""""""" approach where weekly training activities will be carefully planted around a few provocative questions, using published real studies as examples and real datasets for practice and exercises. We expect that these innovations, combined with diligent work by our team of highly experienced teachers and scientists and the conducive environment and institutional support at WUSM, will result in a successful program that will have immediate effect on help closing the gap between supply and demand in biostatisticians and a much broader and long-term effect on how introductory biostatistics may be taught in today's biomedical enterprise.
This new biostatistics training program, with its emphasis on statistical genetics and bioinformatics, aims at closing the gap between supply and demand in able biostatisticians, which is critically important to new public health initiatives such as the NIH Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSAs). Its innovative """"""""enriched problem-based training"""""""" approach and the """"""""summer training with year-long education"""""""" model will have broader and long-term impact on education in introductory biostatistics.
