About us
Mission and Goals
We saw a need to identify, integrate and coordinate the expertise and resources in biostatistics, informatics and computational/quantitative data sciences to support biomedical and health science research and practice at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) and Texas Medical Center (TMC). To address this need, we established an integrated Biostatistics Collaboration and Data Services (BCDS). Our goals include:
- Identify, integrate and coordinate the biostatistics, informatics, and computational/quantitative data science expertise and resources from the Department of Biostatistics and Data Science (BDS), UTHealth School of Public Health (UTSPH) and other UTHealth departments /schools /organizations to provide a one-stop support/services to biomedical and health science research and practice;
- Promote the use and awareness of cutting-edge biostatistics, computational and quantitative data science approaches in biomedical and health science research and practice;
- Provide training to statisticians, computational experts, and data scientists to communicate and collaborate with biomedical and health scientists and to improve the health of people via collaboration and service projects.
Who provides our services
- Faculty members or scientists at UTHealth who are qualified professionals in biostatistics, informatics, computational and quantitative data sciences and who are willing to provide collaboration support and services to investigators for clinical and biomedical/health science research and practice.
- We may require all students to participate in the consulting services under the supervision of a faculty service provider, which can be counted as credit hours for students.
Who we serve
- Clinical, biomedical and health science investigators from research institutions, academic organizations, medical centers, research or teaching hospitals, and similar organizations at UTHealth and TMC;
- Industrial partners or users within our scope of services and support;
- Potential expansion to other local, national or international users.
Our areas of expertise
Data services
- Identify relevant existing data from public and other resources
- Perform data management, data extraction, and data preparation
- Preliminary data analysis and exploration for grant applications
- Support experimental design for new data collection
- Support data sharing
Biostatistics & advanced data analytics
- Study design and sample size/power calculation
- Identification of appropriate and accurate statistical methods/models
- Statistical data analysis with proper interpretation
- Bioinformatics (“omics”) data analysis
- Computational and bio-mathematical predictive modeling
- EHR/EMR and other healthcare data integration and analytics
- Imaging data analysis and modeling
- Wearable device stream data analysis and modeling
- Unstructured and qualitative data analysis
- Complex data visualization
- Data analysis/modeling/integration software tool development
How to work with us
Management and operation
- A service user will complete and contact
Dr. Vahed Marougy
(713) 500-9588
vahed.maroufy@uth.tmc.edu
- The CCS Committee will evaluate, identify and match the service request with the expertise of service providers;
- When a service provider is identified and responds to the request, the CCS Staff Coordinator will help to schedule the first meeting for the service user, the potential service provider, and a CCS Committee member to further evaluate the need for expertise and skill sets for the project. If necessary, different or additional service providers may be called in;
- For a large project that requires a multidisciplinary team of service providers, the CCS Committee will help to identify and organize the service team with an appointed team leader to work with the service user;
- The CCS Coordinator will track and manage all service and collaboration requests and projects, and the results of the collaboration services;
- The CCS Coordinator will survey our service users for feedback on service quality and satisfaction in order to improve the services.
Service charges
- First hour: free of charge;
- Free for collaboration on the grant application, but the service provider and his/her associates’ effort and other needs for the proposed project should be appropriately budgeted in the grant application. We suggest:
- For a small grant such as NIH R21 and R03 or K-award, the minimum effort is 5% for all years for a faculty service provider;
- For a regular NIH R01 grant, the minimum effort is 15% for a faculty service provider;
- For a large program or center grant, usually, 10-20% of the overall project budget is suggested for data management, modeling, and analysis, which depends on the size and complexity of collected data from the project.
- For non-grant application services, the flat rate is $175 per person/hour for academic investigators. If the service results in publications and intellectual properties, appropriate authorship or ownership should be honored to the service providers by mutual agreement;
- For industrial partners or users, the service rate is usually higher than the academic rate and it should be determined based on the mutual agreement between the service provider and service user.
Dispute and settlement
For any disagreement that cannot be resolved by service providers and users themselves, it should be reported to the CCS Coordinator and Chair. Further discussions and actions may involve other Committee members as well as the Department Chair and UTHealth School of Public Health leadership until the reported issues are settled.
