VCU Biostatistics Department

The Department of Biostatistics is housed in the VCU School of Medicine and is committed to excellence in providing a graduate training program, conducting multidisciplinary collaborative biomedical research and developing new statistical methods. The Department includes 23 full-time faculty members who have expertise in data management; analysis of high-throughput genomic, proteomic, and metabolomic data; methodologies for designing studies of mixtures of drugs or chemicals; dose-finding and adaptive designs for Phase I studies; linear and non-linear modeling of longitudinal data for epidemiological studies and clinical trials. Strong ties exist between the Department of Biostatistics and departments and centers within the School of Medicine as well as within the Schools of Dentistry, Pharmacy, Nursing, and Allied Health. Faculty members belong to multidisciplinary teams in many federally funded translational research projects across the university, including studies of genes related to hepatocellular carcinoma; chronic allograft nephropathy; the Massey NCI designated cancer center; traumatic brain injury model systems; sedation and ventilator effects in hospitalized patients; epigenomics of leukemias, lymphomas, and blood stem cells; childhood obesity, and sexual maturation. Faculty members teach classes and publish an average of two methodological publications per year in statistical or related journals and seven collaborative publications in a wide variety of biomedical journals. They also collaborate on an average of four new grant applications and four new grant awards per year. The faculty members are currently 66% externally funded through collaborative research on projects in other schools and departments at VCU. These collaborative research efforts stimulate the development of biostatistical methodology as our faculty members apply theoretical methods to the analysis of biomedical data. Faculty members also serve as reviewers and editors for professional journals, serve on NIH study sections, and participate in international multidisciplinary collaborative research. programs in biostatistics, a Ph.D. in genomic biostatistics, and an M.S. in biostatistics with a concentration in clinical research and biostatistics. The majority of the graduate students are supported through collaborative projects and partnerships with industry. The department has a National Research Service Award pre-doctoral training program funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS). The purpose of this award is to train students to develop analytic methods for the study of chemical mixtures and analysis of toxicogenomic data. One faculty member also has a regular research grant funded in this area by the NIEHS.