The Center for Biostatistics, Computing and Informatics in Biology & Medicine (CBCIBM) is a cross-school, cross-discipline academic and service center that was created in January 2004. The Center resides under the Office of Vice President for Research. Dr. Thomas Becker is the interim director of the CBCIBM. A Steering committee provides oversight to the Center with representation from OGI (Dr. David Maier), SOD (Dr. Ron Sakaguchi), SOM/Medical Informatics (Dr. Bill Hersh), SOM/Basic Research (Dr. Robert Hitzemann) and university cores (Dr. Chris Harrington).

Our Mission

The mission of the center is to promote research in biostatistics, bioinformatics, and computing, to develop and foster educational programs in collaboration with existing departments, and to provide bioinformatics and biostatistical support to core laboratories, research units and individual researchers at OHSU.

History of the Center

The Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Advisory Committees were established in August 2002 by Dr. Daniel Dorsa, Vice President for Research, to address biostatistics and bioinformatics issues in research, education, service and development at OHSU. The committees are charged with coming up with a highly integrative, joint plan and recommendation by Spring 2003. In order to accurately assess and document biostatistics and bioinformatics needs with respect to service, research and education, an online campus wide survey was distributed. The results of the survey can be found here (summary of results, all results). A joint recommendation was submitted in January 2003. The emphasis of this proposal was to create new cross-discipline activities (with respect to service and education) and to end duplication of effort and fragmentation with respect to service and development by the creation of centralized shared resources. Finally, it was envisioned that the synergy between the academic and service components of the center would promote growth and allow new approaches to reach researchers more quickly. The members of the Committees were:

Members of the Bioinformatics Advisory Committee

Chris Harrington, William Hersh, Robert Hitzemann, John Kenagy, Darlene Kitterman, Mike Lasarev, David Maier, Shannon McWeeney (Chair), Motomi Mori, Srinivasa Nagalla, Eric Orwoll, David Robinson, Ron Sakaguchi

Members of the Biostatistics Advisory Committee

Thomas Becker, Robert Hitzemann, John Kenagy, Darlene Kitterman, Jodi Lapidus, Mike Lasarev, Robert Lowe, Shannon McWeeney, Motomi Mori (Chair), Eric Orwoll, Nancy Perrin, David Robinson, Ron Sakaguchi, Gary Sexton

At the request of Dr. Dorsa, a revised proposal and business plan was submitted June 2003. The proposal was accepted and the Center was funded January 2004.

Structure of the Center

The Center is composed of two components: an academic program focused on cross-discipline research and promotion of biostatistics and bioinformatics on campus, as well as an integrated service component, the Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Shared Resource, which provides biostatistical as well as advanced data and computing support.