Opportunity Details

Washington University in St. Louis (WU), founded in 1853, is a medium-sized, private research university with approximately 12,000 full-time students, half of whom are enrolled in graduate and professional programs, and nearly 2,100 part-time students. The diverse student body represents all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and more than 100 countries around the world, with approximately ninety percent of undergraduates derived from outside the state. This strength in entrepreneurial studies complements recent St. Louis recognition as among the best startup cities in the nation, evidenced in the CORTEX Innovation District and its 20 partners.

The Washington University School of Medicine (WUSM) is a world-class, research-intensive academic health center. Since its founding in 1891, WUSM has trained nearly 9,000 physicians and has contributed groundbreaking discoveries in many areas of medical research. WUSM is internationally known for research in neuroscience, genetics, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, oncology, immunology, diagnostic imaging, and many other specialty areas.

BJC HealthCare (BJC) system includes 13 community hospitals in Missouri and southern Illinois with 3,479 staffed beds, and is one of the largest academically-based health care systems in the country. BJC is recognized for its ability to integrate health services in a cost-efficient manner, while providing an innovative medical data and imaging repository to enhance physicians’ access to patient data. BJC has more than 100 sites in the St. Louis metropolitan area for medical care and services, and is the dominant health care provider in the region with a 34 percent market share – more than double that of the next largest system.
 

The Institute for Informatics, Data Science and Biostatistics (I2DB) is a comprehensive home for Biomedical Informatics and Data Science research, education, and services spanning WU, BJC, and affiliated entities. I2DB was created in response to the changes currently being experienced across the modern healthcare and life sciences environments wherein there has been a fundamental shift towards trans-disciplinary, integrative, and data-intensive approaches to basic, clinical, translational, and population-level research. These developments have been coupled with the widespread use of information technology platforms to re-engineer of healthcare delivery and achieve greater value alongside improved outcomes and safety. The complex data, information, and knowledge needs associated with these trends require a comprehensive and systems-level approach to Biomedical Informatics, Biostatistics and Data Science research, education, and practice.

I2DB is a medical school-wide facility that engages in research consultation, teaching, and training. engages in innovative research, workforce development, and biostatistics service delivery targeting a variety of critical areas of need, including the integration, management, and analysis of heterogeneous longitudinal data, information, and knowledge resources; computational approaches to the analysis of imaging, clinical, and genomic data to inform precision medicine; the acceleration of clinical, epidemiological, and genetic research through study protocols, data resources, and analytical pipelines; developing cutting-edge independent scientists and future research leaders in biostatistics and data science; and methodological and technical approaches to enable and enhance research reproducibility and rigor. The teaching and training component of the Division’s mission is centered around a multi- disciplinary graduate training program in biostatistics, which provides training in biostatistics, genetic epidemiology, statistical genetics, and bioinformatics. I2DB leads a post-doctoral training program in genetic epidemiology and hosts the Program to Increase Diversity among Individuals Engaged in health-related research (PRIDE) each summer.

I2DB comprises a multi-disciplinary team of faculty investigators, technical staff, and trainees affiliated with partnering academic units throughout Washington University. In this way,I2DB spans traditional organizational boundaries and provides for a crosscutting community-of-practice that enhances and extends the academic and operational strengths of the university and leverages the unique living laboratory afforded by the robust local and regional research and healthcare delivery enterprises.

Trial-CARE is a multi-dimensional clinical trial support service provided by the WUSM Center for Clinical Studies (CCS) with support from the Institute of Clinical and Translational Sciences (ICTS, which is WU’s NIH-funded Clinical and Translational Science Award program).  The goal of the service is to improve public health and patient care by maximizing the impact of investigator-initiated clinical trials being conducted by WUSM faculty, with a particular focus on complex or multicenter clinical trials.  Trial-CARE’s experienced clinical research faculty and staff professionals offer a robust consultation service that helps Department-based faculty investigators and their research teams with clinical trial grant development, planning, start-up, and implementation (including providing trial coordinating services to multicenter studies).  

A primary objective of Trial-CARE is to evolve into a fully integrated clinical trial coordinating center platform that brings together expertise in clinical trial design, methodology, and data management (from Biostatistics); regulatory affairs; mobile technology research; and clinical coordinating center function, project management, and general study management (from Trial-CARE).  We wish to provide data coordination/management at a sufficiently high level of standardization and rigor to enable WU faculty to compete for and win large-scale clinical trial and network NIH grants and lead FDA-regulated clinical studies. Guidance and execution of 21 CFR Part 11-compliant trial services, including e-consent and data management using REDCap Cloud and other platforms, will be offered through the Trial-CARE Part 11 Services Unit which represents a collaboration among the CCS, I2DB, and other research support units.