Training for graduate and medical students, fellows, and project managers is provided by the Statistical Consultation and Research Center through seminars, workshops, and the current M.S. and Ph.D. programs in biostatistics and epidemiology. Workshops and seminars are offered to medical fellows and medical researchers on methods for designing, conducting and analyzing clinical trials. Faculty members of the SCRC conduct workshops and seminars to researchers in ophthalmology, gastroenterology, surgery and general clinical research at the University of Southern California. In addition, medical research fellows are encouraged to participate in on-going clinical trials supported by the SCRC, thereby providing a unique training opportunity.

Finally, the SCRC offers individualized consultations on investigator-initiated protocols.

PM 510 Principles of Biostatistics

Nature, scope, and terminology of biostatistics; appropriate uses and common misuses of health statistics; practice in the application of selected statistical procedures; introduction to statistical software (SPSS, nQuery, EXCEL).

PM511ab Data Analysis

aL: Major parametric and nonparametric statistical tools used in biomedical research, computer packages including SAS. Includes laboratory.

bL: Exploratory data analysis, detection of outliers, fitting data with linear/nonlinear regression models, computer packages including S-PLUS and SPSS. Includes laboratory.

PM512 Principles of Epidemiology

Terminology and uses of epidemiology and demography; sources and uses of population data; types of epidemiologic studies; risk assessment; common sources of bias in population studies; principles of screening.

PM523 Design of Clinical Studies

Design, conduct and interpretation of results of clinical trials. Emphasis on principles affecting structure, size, duration of a trial, and the impact of ethical and practical considerations.

PM570 Statistical Methods in Human Genetics

An introductory course in the statistical methods used in the analysis of human genetic data. Topics in basic molecular biology, population genetics, linkage analysis, and association analysis will be covered. Strong emphasis will be placed on methods used in the positional cloning of genes predisposing for complex diseases.

In addition, faculty members of the SCRC are involved in the training of clinical researchers as a component of Clinical Cancer Genetic Fellowship Program (NIH R25-CA-99-095), the Vision Science Core (NIH R01-EY-03040) and the General Clinical Research Center (NIH M01-RP-00043).