Biostatistics and Bioinformatics The Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Shared Resource (BBSR) offers comprehensive statistical and bioinformatics consultation, collaboration, and technical services to all Norris Cotton Cancer Center (NCCC) Programs. All BBSR statisticians and bioinformaticians are equipped with state-of-the-art workstations with general and specialty statistical packages, such as SAS, R, RStudio, PASS, NQuery, SPSS, MPlus, and Winbugs. High-performance computing relies on access to a 2000+ processor parallel computer cluster (Discovery). Ten (10) faculty from the Departments of Biomedical Data Sciences, The Dartmouth Institute, and Pediatrics serve as scientific collaborators in clinical trial and research design, advise on and participate in statistical study management, perform statistical oversight, and conduct data analyses. State-of-the-art capabilities are evident in BBSR faculty having obtained two PCORI Methodology Awards, two NIH R01s, and two individual K01s during the current funding period. Since the last review, four new faculty have joined the Shared Resource (i.e., Drs. Frost [CBT], Emond [CPS], Gorlov [CPS] and Moen [CPS]), strengthening support for behavioral research and network analysis, and formerly separate Biostatistics and Bioinformatics resources have been merged to better coordinate faculty expertise and take advantage of administrative efficiencies. More than 300 peer-reviewed cancer-related publications involving BBSR faculty as co-authors appeared in the current reporting period. The breadth of BBSR impact is evident in examples of the development of collaboration with Cancer Population Sciences investigators on specialized statistical methods for analyzing terminal declines in quality of life, gene set enrichment analyses performed with the Cancer Biology and Therapeutics Program to identify pathways presenting potential therapeutic opportunity, and advanced image processing and machine learning to assist Translational Engineering in Cancer investigators in cancer detection. The Division of Biostatistics in the new Department of Biomedical Science serves as the BBSR organizational home, but nine of the 10 faculty are housed on site in the NCCC Rubin Building. Dr. Tor Tosteson (CPS) has served as Shared Resource Director for more than 20 years. Faculty meet monthly to coordinate activities, and a second faculty member provides an independent review of protocols and internally- funded projects with a BBSR co-investigator. During the current reporting period, 126 BBSR clients were NCCC Members at the time of service (CPS [62], CBT [33], ICI [16], TEC [15]). 56 NCCC Members, in addition to 300 publications, collaborated on 62 grant applications. Funded NCCC Members represented 29% (73) of Total Users, and we are requesting only 13% of the Total BBSR budget from CCSG support. New initiatives to augment services to NCCC Members include formal designation of BBSR faculty for participation on mentoring committees. Additionally, walk-in clinics are being established for short consult requiring primarily quick advice for researchers at many levels of statistical sophistication.
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