Transcript ISCB Sub-Committee Vaccines

ISCB Sub-Committee
National Groups
Terms of Reference, Membership and Report
ISCB35 Vienna 2014: AGM Wed 27 Aug
NatG:
Terms of Reference and Membership
Information
National Groups
iscb-national-groups@
googlegroups.com
Terms of Reference
1. To help those who are interested
in forming a National Group through
the approval process
2. To review the arrangements with
the current National Groups,
specifically regarding financial
matters.
3. To set rules and standards for
funding of ISCB members of National
Groups and others from countries
with exchange control restrictions or
barriers.
4. The Subcommittee administers
the Conference Awards for Scientists
for the annual ISCB meetings.
Members
Chair:
1. *Zdeněk Valenta (CZ)
Secretary:
2. Anca Vitcu (RO)
Members:
3. Gordana Jovic (UK)
4. Stanislav Katina (CZ)
5. Ewa Kawalec (PL)
6. Arnošt Komárek (CZ)
7. Jenö Reiczigel (HU)
8. Elisabeth Svensson (SE)
9. Zsolt Lang (HU)
10. Chris Metcalfe (UK)
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NatG: Overview
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Czech Republic
◦ http://sites.google.com/site/iscbcr/home
Hungary
◦ http://efabis.univet.hu:8080/biostat
Poland
◦ http://www.iscb.pl/
Romania
◦ http://thor.info.uaic.ro/~rng/
Serbia
◦ Preparatory works for launching the Serbian NG’s
website are still under way.
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NatG: Czech Republic
Report
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Overview
◦ The Group currently involves 43 biostatisticians from
around the country, 1 member lives in neighbouring
Slovakia
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NatG Representatives (valid mandates until Sept 10,
2015)
◦ Zdeněk Valenta (chairman)
◦ Marek Malý (vice-chairman)
◦ Jindra Reissigová (treasurer)
History
◦ The Group was officially registered in the Czech
Republic with the Czech Ministry of the Interior on
Sept 11, 2006.
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NatG: Czech Republic
Report
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Seminars, Courses, Conference Organisation
May 31, 2013: One-day course course entitled
”Generalised Linear Mixed-effects Models: Concepts and
Applications".
Lecturer: Prof. Tomasz Burzykowski, Ph.D.
◦ Tomasz currently serves as Vice-president of
Research at IDDI and Professor of Biostatistics and
Bioinformatics at Hasselt University, Diepenbeek,
Belgium. He also serves on the ISCB ExCom & Educ SC.
Participants: 24 researchers/biostatisticians
◦ Czech Republic (18), Italy (1), Germany (1), Poland (1),
Serbia (1), Norway (1) a Romania (1).
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NatG: Czech Republic
Report
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Seminars, Courses, Conference Organisation
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Nov 5, 2013: Talk title: ”Can a behavioral intervention
decrease HIV incidence? Results from Project ACCEPT, a
community-randomized HIV prevention trial".
◦ The project is supported by the NIH grant.
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Lecturer: Assoc. Prof. Michal Kulich, Ph.D.
◦ Michal works as a lecturer at the Faculty of
Mathematics and Physics, Charles University in Prague
and serves as a PI on the NIH grant.
Hypothesis: Can a voluntary counselling and testing, if
made freely available and easily accessible, reduce the
rate of HIV spread in HIV endemic areas?
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NatG: Czech Republic
Report
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Seminars, Courses, Conference Organisation
Community-randomized study: Study units are
communities defined as distinct geographical areas.
24 community pairs (48 communities):
◦ Chiang Mai (Thailand): 7 pairs
◦ Kisarawe (Tanzania): 5 pairs
◦ Mutoko (Zimbabwe): 4 pairs
◦ Vulindlela (South Africa): 4 pairs
◦ Soweto (South Africa): 4 pairs
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NatG: Czech Republic
Report
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Seminars, Courses, Conference Organisation
Community population:
◦ 5,000 – 15,000 (Soweto 15,000 – 25,000)
Results:
◦ Project Accept demonstrated modest reductions in
HIV incidence, especially among older women (aged
25-32 years).
◦ The intervention did not affect HIV incidence in
younger people
◦ The 30% reduction in HIV incidence among older
women was consistent in nearly all community pairs
and was highly significant.
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NatG: Czech Republic
Report
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Seminars, Courses, Conference Organisation
◦ Nov 20, 2013: Talk title: “Evaluation of patients with
chronic myeloid leukaemia in the era of modern
pharmacotherapy”.
◦ Lecturer: RNDr. Tomáš Pavlík, Ph.D.
◦ Tomáš works as a lecturer at the Institute of
Biostatistics and Analyses, Masaryk University, Brno,
Czech Republic.
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NatG: Czech Republic
Report
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Seminars, Courses, Conference Organisation
◦ Dec 11, 2013: Talk title: “Modelling relative survival in
patients with colorectal carcinoma: do women survive
longer than male?”.
◦ Lecturer: RNDr. Ondřej Májek, Ph.D.
◦ Ondřej works as a lecturer at the Institute of
Biostatistics and Analyses, Masaryk University, Brno,
Czech Republic.
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NatG: Czech Republic
Report
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Seminars, Courses, Conference Organisation
◦ Apr 30, 2014: Talk title: “Urinary content of the U-238
in the Czech uranium miners as a function of daily
inhalation intake and physical-chemical aerosol
properties”.
◦ Lecturer: Mgr. Lukáš Kotík
◦ Lukáš works as a researcher at the National Radiation
Protection Institute in Prague, Czech Republic.
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NatG: Czech Republic
Report
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General Assembly of Members
◦ Date:
Apr 30, 2014
◦ Major issues, future tasks:
 Approval of annual reports prepared by the NatG
Reps.
 Transformation of the current form of `Civic
Institution' to that of `Registered Association', in
accordance with the new Civil Code effective in the
Czech Republic since Jan 1, 2014.
 Civic institutions will have to complete their
transformation within the 3 years period (i.e. by Dec
31, 2016).
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NatG: Poland
Report
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Overview
◦ Polish National Group of ISCB currently consists of 87
members.
◦ The scientific meetings take place usually twice a year
(in summer and winter).
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NatG: Poland
Report
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Seminars, Courses, Conference Organisation
◦ At the meeting in January 2014 our members gave
four lectures, which were preceded by a special
lecture given by Tomasz Burzykowski on “Biostatistics
and technological revolution in molecular biology.
Application of statistics in genomics”.
◦ Thanks to the financial support of the ISCB Polish
Group was able to organise in cooperation with the
Department of Epidemiology and Population Studies,
Institute of Public Health, Faculty of Health Sciences,
Jagiellonian University Medical College, a two-day
course on "Dealing with missing data: concepts,
methods, and applications"
(25.-26. October 2013. Cracow, Poland).
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NatG: Poland
Report
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Seminars, Courses, Conference Organisation
◦ The course covered the main topics related to the
methods for dealing with missing data. In particular,
the topics included the types of missing data
mechanisms, analysis strategies, ignorability, models
used to analyse data with missing observations,
imputation techniques. No computer sessions were
organized; however, the lectures were richly
illustrated with practical examples.
◦ The course was led by Tomasz Burzykowski from the
Centre for Statistics of the Hasselt University in
Belgium. The course was attended by 38 people from
5 countries (Austria, Hungary, Italy, Poland, USA). Both
the content of the course, documentation and lectures
were rated very well and all participants recommend
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NatG: Poland
Report
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Seminars, Courses, Conference Organisation
◦ The summer scientific meeting of the Group was held
during the Seminar “Statistics and Clinical Practice” in
Warsaw 1-4, June 2014 organised by the International
Centre of Biocybernetics.
◦ A special session addressed to medical doctors under
the title: “Statistical standards in medical research
projects and publications” was organised by the Polish
Group of ISCB.
◦ The next scientific meeting is scheduled for winter
2014.
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NatG: Hungary
Report
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Overview
◦ The Hungarian National group has 52 registered
members for 2014.
◦ We continued with our regular group meetings with
lectures given by members as well as by invited
speakers.
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NatG: Hungary
Report
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Seminars, Courses, Conference Organisation
◦ Six members of our group took part in the ISCB
conference in Munich in August 2013.
◦ Seven of us attended the ISCB course “Dealing with
missing data – concepts, methods and applications” in
Krakow in November.
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NatG: Hungary
Report
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Seminars, Courses, Conference Organisation
◦ Regrettably, there was no application for the “Young
biostatistician of the year” award in this year. We
should improve the advertisement.
◦ Due to some changes of the Hungarian law, we had to
make changes in our constitution.
◦ Our annual general meeting took place on the 25th of
April 2014, with election of representatives for the
next two years. Júlia Singer was elected as chair
(national representative), Krisztina Boda as secretary,
and Péter Vargha as treasurer.
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NatG: Hungary
Report
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Seminars, Courses, Conference Organisation
◦ We organized the 10th Hungarian Biometric
Conference in Budapest on 16-17 May 2014.
◦ This conference is organized in each three years and
it is the scientific forum for exchange of theory,
methods, applications and teaching techniques
between all fields where biometry is applied (clinical
and pre-clinical research, epidemiology, agriculture,
etc.).
◦ The conference had around 60 participants, and had
various sections (survey statistics, spatial statistics,
non-stochastic and predictive models, statistical
methods in drug research, teaching biostatistics,
posters).
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NatG: Romania
Report
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Overview
◦ As in previous years the members of the national
network centres (Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Iasi, Sibiu,
Timisoara, Targu Mures) participate in the national
and European project competitions, are involved in
the organization of national and international
trainings and workshops in the universities and
companies to which they are affiliated.
◦ They work as consultants, members or directors of
interdisciplinary research teams, act as coordinators
and members of panel symposiums and scientific
boards.
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NatG: Romania
Report
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Seminars, Courses, Conference Organisation
◦ The main event of 2014 entitled “Statistical
Perspectives in Medicine and Pharma Industry” will be
organized by Anca Vitcu and Liana Bera between
September/October, in Sibiu, at the Faculty of
Medicine from “Lucian Blaga” University.
◦ The event will be organized in partnership with the
Faculty of Computer Science from “Alexandru Ioan
Cuza” University (UAIC, Iasi) and will consist of two
short-courses:
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NatG: Romania
Report
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Seminars, Courses, Conference Organisation
◦ Course 1: ‘Bayesian methods for Binomial Data and
Biostatistics Quality Matters’ with David W. Warne,
PhD, Consultant Biostatistician, Switzerland.
◦ Course 2: ‘An Introduction to Statistical Analysis of
Network Data in Medical and Pharmacological Systems
Research’ with Anca Vitcu, PhD, Faculty of Computer
Science, UAIC, Iasi, Romania.
◦ The workshop set up on a laboratory learning
environment will include case studies and practical
sessions on network analysis and biostatistics in
medicine and the pharma industry – the current and
future challenges."
◦ The event will be sponsored by ISCB.
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NatG: Serbia
Report
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Overview
◦ The Serbian NG currently involves 14 members
◦ Activities (informal contact with some institutions)
 Ministry of Health
 Institute for Public Health of Serbia
 Medicines and Medical Devices Agency of Serbia
 Mathematical faculty of University in Belgrade
◦ In meeting with them we have discussed about the
role and place of biostatisticians.
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NatG: Serbia
Report
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Seminars, Courses, Conference Organisation
◦ Course: “Statistics in clinical trials”
 Date: March 2014
 Organizer: CRA Academy
(http://www.cro.rs/page/en/index )
 Lecturers:
 dipl math Zorana Bizetic (ISCB NG Serbia)
 dipl math Dusica Gavrilovic (ISCB NG Serbia)
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NatG: Serbia
Report
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Seminars, Courses, Conference Organisation
◦ Biostatistics course: “Statistical methods in pharmaco-
economic research”
◦ Date: May 2013.
◦ Organizer: Department for Biochemistry, Faculty of
Pharmacy and biochemistry, University of Zagreb,
Croatia
◦ Lecturer: Doc. Dr Nataša Bogavac-Stanojevic (ISCB NG
Serbia)
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NatG: 2014 CAS Awards
Report
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Overview:
◦ This year the ISCB NatG SC received 7 eligible
applications from geographically well dispersed
countries:
◦ Cuba (1), Poland (2), South Africa (1), Iran (1), Hungary
(1) and the Czech Republic (1).
Decision:
◦ This year the NatG SC decided to grant 2 ISCB CAS
awards. They include the following:
 Free registration
 Free accommodation
 Free subscription to one Short Course
 Invitation to Conference Dinner
 Travel support
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NatG: 2014 CAS Awards
Report
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… and the 2014 CAS awards go to:
◦ Anneke Grobler (South Africa)
 Paper title: “CD4+ Counts in a 3-Arm Longitudinal
Clinical Trial With Substantial Missing Data: A
Sensitivity Analysis”
◦ Jiří Zelinka (Czech Republic)
 Paper title: “Kernel Estimation of Hazard Function for
Orthopedic Data”
 Congratulation to the winners!
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