|
 |
|
|
Makuch Assists in Development of Japanese
Government's Initiative to Develop a Biostatistics Training Program
Robert Makuch, Ph.D. and Professor of Public Health in the Division of
Biostatistics, is assisting in the development of a biostatistics training
program in Japan, the first such program funded by the Japanese government.
As part of this 5-year initiative, he was an invited presenter at the
inaugural ceremony celebrating the opening of Kurume University School
of Medicine’s Translational Research Center (TRC) where the first
training program will reside.
In February 2003, Tatsuyuki Kakuma, who was a student in the Division
of Biostatistics (’85 M.P.H., ’90 Ph.D.) and is now a Visiting
Professor of Biostatistics at Kurume University and Professor of Biostatistics
at the Japan Red Cross Kyushu International College of Nursing, approached
Makuch about collaborating in the development of Kurume’s five year
biostatistics training program. Plans for the program represented a major
advance in Japan, where at the time, biostatistics barely existed as a
discipline and there were no biostatistics training centers. Recognizing
that the situation was hurting Japan’s ability to keep up with advances
in drug development and diagnostic techniques resulting from the use of
biostatistics in collaborations between doctors, statisticians and basic
scientists, the Japanese government launched an initiative now housed
at TRC.
Makuch, along with other leaders in the field, was invited to speak at
the July 7, 2003 ceremony celebrating the opening of TRC, which was attended
by more than 250 people. Makuch’s talk, entitled “Accomplishments
and Challenges of Biostatistics in Medicine,” underscored the importance
of biostatistical science to medical research. He stated that the “goals
of translational medical research include the identification of new treatments
that are highly efficacious, while at the same time insuring that these
treatments have desirable safety profiles. A third goal is to achieve
these first two aims in a way that is cost effective and time efficient.”
Makuch also summarized recent advances in biostatistics/statistical genomics
that play key roles in the analysis and objective identification of lead
compounds and in the process of differentiation of compounds, and emphasized
the contributions of the field of biostatistics to both preclinical drug
development and the conduct of clinical studies.
Makuch says that the program, which will begin to train its first class
of approximately 25 students this April, will “bring proteomics
to the bedside” and hopefully lead to new treatments and diagnostic
methods for a variety of diseases. He will return to Japan this summer
to continue work on developing the program.
-Story by Christy Gordon, based on interview with Robert Makuch, January
29, 2004.
|
