Breast Center Biostatistics and Informatics Core
The Core provides support for the biostatistics, informatics, data management and tumor bank activities of the Breast Center under the direction of Dr. Susan G. Hilsenbeck.
- The biostatistics component is comprised of 3 faculty and 2 MS
level statisticians and provides all aspects of statistical services
and collaborative research support for the Center. This includes study
planning, design of clinical trials and microarray expression experiments,
assistance with clinical trial conduct, statistical analysis, and report
generation for interim analyses, DSMCs, and manuscript preparation.
- The informatics team includes a systems administrator, database
administrator, web developer, 3 application programmers and 3 desktop
support personnel. The informatics component is responsible for maintaining
all servers in a local area network, developing centralized relational
databases, and providing desktop support to over 120 users in the Breast
Center. The web-based Informatics
User Request System is available for all Breast Center members
to request services provided by the Informatics Component.
- The
data management and tumor bank component is comprised of 4 data
management and 3 tumor bank personnel who provide support
services for the biostatistics component and for investigators' research
efforts both inside and outside of the Breast Center. The tumor bank
personnel accession (check in), process and store human and animal tissues
and sera into a secure inventory system, and later distribute tissues
as needed. The data management team members work to obtain informed consent
from human donors, acquire tissue, perform abstracting and followup activities
and maintain databases of all patient-related data.
The Core is located on the 3rd floor of the Cullen building and occupies approximately 2,500 sf. Specific descriptions of the services and resources available from each component of the Core are described in detail in the side bar menus.