Department of Biostatistics and Computational Biology
Research
Methodologic research
Faculty members in the Department of Biostatistics and Computational Biology have long been active in extending the boundaries of statistical methods for medical research. All of this work is supported by peer-reviewed grants, usually from the National Cancer Institute (NCI). In the last year, these grants supported work in bioinformatics, statistical issues in the early detection of disease, methods for analyzing correlated sequential measurements, robust methods for survival data, mechanisms of mortality and morbidity due to air particles, and the development of software for toxicological risk assessment.
Some of our accomplishments include:
- Professor Cheng Li completed work on DNA-Chip Analyzer (dChip), a software system for the analysis of gene-expression and other genomic data (www.dchip.org) that provides state-of-the-art computing methods, such as hierarchical clustering, to biologists and physician-scientists who do not have extensive training in computation or statistics. The program is freely available to academic users and is now widely used by investigators throughout the world.
- The Department of Biostatistics and Computational Biology was awarded the Coordinating Center Grant for the Cancer Care Outcomes and Surveillance Research Consortium (David Harrington, PI). A network of seven research teams around the country will use rapid case ascertainment to identify and interview approximately 10,000 patients with colorectal or lung cancer and their physicians to study patterns of care, with a special emphasis on examining the reasons behind racial, ethnic and age disparities in care and outcome. Interviewers began talking to patients in fall 2003; final data from the project will be available in fall 2006.
- During 2004, department members authored or coauthored more than 100 peer-reviewed publications. These articles appeared in a range of journals in both cancer research and biostatistics, including the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Journal of the American Medical Association, Blood, Journal of the American Statistical Association, Cancer, and Biometrics.
Collaborative research
Statisticians in the department provide expertise in nearly all aspects of interdisciplinary research in cancer. They prepare or review the statistical designs and analysis plans for all clinical protocols conducted at DFCI and DF/HCC through membership in the newly developed disease programs, the DF/HCC Scientific Review Committees, and the Institutional Review Boards. Because of its many years of experience in clinical research, the department has built an extensive library of software for calculating sample sizes and analyzing data from clinical trials. Approximately 30 percent of the projects of the Cancer Center Support Grant are collaborative efforts with basic laboratory scientists at DF/HCC. Our statisticians also provide assistance with statistical content for all grant submissions. We estimate that each year our statisticians are involved in more than 800 projects, large and small, with DFCI investigators.
Several of the departments collaborative projects extend beyond DFCI, including:
Computational Biology and Functional Genomic Lab
The Computational Biology and Functional Genomic lab at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute focuses on the application of functional genomics techniques — including microarrays, proteomics, metabolomics, and other high-throughput approaches — and the development of computational approaches in support of these studies to develop a comprehensive view of human diseases, including cancer. Their goal is to develop software, databases, and bioinformatics techniques that will allow the development of new diagnostics and a more complete understanding of the cellular networks that are mechanistically responsible for diseases, and to make those tools widely and freely available to the research community to enable research beyond our own.
Computational Biology and Functional Genomic Lab Web Site
Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group
Our department serves as the statistical center for the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG), which is one of the largest clinical cancer research organizations in the United States, and conducts clinical trials in all types of adult cancers. ECOG is now more than 45 years old, has a database of more than 100,000 cancer cases, and is conducting active follow-up of over 20,000 patients treated in clinical trials.
Cancer Care Outcomes Research and Surveillance Consortium
The goal of the Cancer Care Outcomes Research and Surveillance Consortium (CanCORS) is to conduct population-based research in the areas of access to care, patterns of care, and prognosis for lung and colorectal cancer. Our department acts as the Statistical Coordinating Center for the seven research sites across the United States. This project is funded by several grants from the National Cancer Institute.
Department of Biostatistics, Harvard School of Public Health
Located on the Harvard Medical Campus, the Department of Biostatistics was one of the first departments in the newly formed Harvard School of Public Health in 1922. The departmental location is central to its mission: to facilitate collaborations between the members of the department and other medical scientists. Now in its 82 year, the department comprises 93 students, 60 faculty members, and 28 research associates and fellows. Our size contributes to our ability to address a broad spectrum of biostatistical and public health issues.
Department of Biostatistics, Harvard School of Public Health Web site
International Breast Cancer Study Group
For over 25 years, the International Breast Cancer Study Group (IBCSG) has dedicated itself to the development of innovative clinical research to improve the quality of life and survival of women with breast cancer. IBCSG is part of Breast International Group (BIG), and the Statistical Center, located in our department, works closely with investigators and patients in over 19 countries around the world to achieve excellence in large-scale clinical trials for adjuvant therapy.
DNA-Chip Analyzer
Developed by Dr. Cheng Li, DNA-Chip Analyzer (dChip) is a software package implementing model-based expression analysis of oligonucleotide arrays and several high-level analysis procedures. The model-based approach allows probe-level analysis on multiple arrays. By pooling information across multiple arrays, it is possible to assess standard errors for the expression indexes. This approach also allows automatic probe selection in the analysis stage to reduce errors due to cross-hybridizing probes and image contamination. High-level analysis in dChip includes comparative analysis and hierarchical clustering.
Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center
The Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center (DF/HCC) is an innovative collaboration formed in 1999 from the original Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, which had been designated by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) as a Comprehensive Cancer Center, and has been supported by the NCI for the past 36 years. DF/HCC was formally funded as a 7-institution consortium, including the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Children's Hospital Boston, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, Harvard School of Public Health, and Massachusetts General Hospital, and an NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center in 2000. The cancer research and treatment collaborations sponsored across the participating institutions by the DF/HCC will combine the disciplines of population science, clinical science, and basic research, to facilitate the development of novel and improved modalities for the prevention and treatment of cancer.
