Methods of Translational Science

An Inter-Institutional Seminar Sponsored by:
The Center for Biomedical Informatics, Harvard Medical School

Introduction
We are in the midst of a revolution of genetic information and data collectively driving profound changes in our knowledge of the prediction, detection and treatment of disease. Advances in technology and biomedical informatics are driving an accelerating barrage of new associations between phenotypes of disease and molecular signals. However, there is yet to be established a baseline of methodology to translate such results into practical clinical use. This seminar will allow participants to collectively explore new methods and tools designed to accelerate the translation from discovery to pragmatic use. Driven by a carefully selected set of driving translational projects, participants in the seminar will explore new and emerging methods to conduct examination of the clinical efficacy and deployment of newly discovered and scientifically sound associations between biomarkers and clinical utility.

Each Module’s objective will be to examine methodologies applied to biomedical discoveries to determine their efficacy and validity in the clinical enterprise. Common steps in the protocols of these methods are the capture, integration, analysis, presentation, and manipulation of the massive amount of complex heterogeneous data required to test the efficacy of the methods, molecular data and use in the clinical settings. This “Methods of Translational Science” palaver is designed to explore, apply and conduct simulations in the pursuit of accelerating translational of discoveries to clinical use.

Seminar Logistics
The Seminar will consist of ten weekly lectures (Monday 3:00-5:00) and regular project sessions (2 hours) conducted between Sept 28th to December 14th, 2009. Seminar and project directors are available for individual and project team meetings by mutual arrangement.

Credits: Participants will coordinate course credits through their Institute’s local seminar director.

Prerequisites: No course or degree prerequisites. This interdisciplinary seminar is for individuals interested in the emerging developments in biomedical informatics and informatics technology that will be used to accelerate the pace of translational from biomedical research discovery to clinical enterprise use. Seminar participants must be approved by their Institutes’ local Director. Eligible Institutes are Harvard Medical School, Harvard Business School, Harvard School of Public Health, The Kennedy School of Government, The Graduate Faculty of Arts & Sciences, Harvard Law School, and the Harvard Graduate School of Education; MIT; University of Wisconsin; Tokyo Medical and Dental University; Yokohama City University and Tokyo Institute of Technology. In addition, undergraduates at University of Wisconsin, MIT and Harvard College are eligible to participate with permission.