This proposal is to continue for an additional five years the training of students in Biostatistics who have a strong interest in collaborative AIDS research. The proposed training is for four predoctoral and two postdoctoral trainees. The program faculty consists of 28 UCLA professors, 4 of whom are key faculty, 7 are biostatistics faculty with a commitment to AIDS research, and 17 are supporting faculty. This multidisciplinary group is composed of internationally known HIV/AIDS researchers in biostatistics, biomathematics, genetics, epidemiology, medicine, immunology, virology, psychology, and psychiatry. The training for predoctoral students will center on the Biostatistics Ph.D. program with specific courses in HIV/AIDS making up the required """"""""third field of application"""""""" component of the program. Examples of more than 25 such courses offered at UCLA include """"""""The Biology of HIV"""""""", """"""""AIDS, A Major Public Health Challenge"""""""", """"""""Intervention to Reduce HIV and Its Consequences"""""""", and """"""""Mental Health Services for Persons with AIDS"""""""". In addition, trainees will be required to take """"""""Statistical Methods in AIDS Research"""""""" and attend the Biostatistics """"""""Seminar in AIDS"""""""", as well as choose an AIDS-related topic for the required year long doctoral consulting course. The AIDS courses will satisfy the requirements for a minor specialization required for Ph.D. students in the department. Predoctoral trainees will develop biostatistical methodology applicable and relevant to AIDS research for their dissertations. Postdoctoral AIDS trainees will be drawn from two pools: graduates with doctorates in statistics or biostatistics and those with doctorates in biology, social science, or other nonstatistical areas. All students will be expected to engage in collaborative research in AIDS and to publish statistical articles relating to AIDS research; students with a statistics background will learn more of the biology of AIDS, while the nonstatistics students will learn more statistics methodology, particularly areas such a longitudinal data analysis and multivariate analysis, which are needed to develop statistical methods useful to AIDS researchers. The multidisciplinary supporting faculty will provide opportunities for long-term collaborative research and will also serve an education function for the students learning more of the biological aspects of HIV. Participation in the annual meetings of the American Statistical Association and AIDS meetings are encouraged; participation in AIDS conferences at UCLA (typically two or three per year) will be required. Detailed recruitment strategies for minorities have been made, and there is a mentoring mechanism to make sure that additional help is available to ensure graduation. ? ? PARTICIPATING FACULTY: The 28 UCLA training faculty consists of 19 professors, 4 associate professors, and 5 assistant professors. Four are key faculty and the remaining 24 are support faculty. Seven are biostatistics faculty with a commitment to AIDS research. Nine of the training faculty are women. Primary areas of research include biostatistics, biomathematics, genetics, epidemiology, medicine, immunology, virology, psychology, and psychiatry. ? ? FELLOWS: Currently, four predoctoral students and two postdoctoral fellows are supported by the grant. During the past 15 years, the AIDS training program supported 38 pre- and postdoctoral trainees (1 person received support for both pre- and postdoctoral training.) Of the 24 predoctoral fellows, 5 did not complete doctoral studies. Most of these departures occurred during the first 5-year period. Among trainees who completed doctoral studies, the majority went to work for drug companies or the biotechnology world. A greater proportion of the postdoctoral fellows worked in academia after completion of the program. During the last 5 years, three minority appointments were made to the AIDS postdoctoral training program. All three are women. Of the four minority predoctoral candidates entering the program, three received Masters Degrees and one is in a doctoral program. ? ? RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT: All campus and department computing facilities will be available to the trainees. These include a state-of-the-art super cluster of 40 Intel Xeon dual processor nodes; a networked Sun Workstation Laboratory, numerous networked personal computers and servers; and software for database management, statistical analysis, spreadsheets, graphics, and word processing. Additional resources are a large cohort dataset, active AIDS centers, and national collaborative projects. ? ?
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