BIOSTATISTICS SHARED UNIX COMPUTER SYSTEM

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This proposal requests funds to establish a state-of-the art statistical computing environment for the Department of Biostatistics and Biostatistics Consulting Center at Johns Hopkins University and thereby to enhance the research productivity of more than 50 scientists at Johns Hopkins whose NIH funding total in excess of $137 million in direct costs. Biostatisticians in the Department and Center Collaborate with medical scientists by designing optimal studies, managing large data systems, providing effective graphical and tabular displays of quantitative information, and by conducting appropriate statistical analyses to address specific study hypotheses. In addition, Hopkins statistical scientists are creating and implementing new quantitative methods to make the most effective use of new kinds of measurements that are arising, for example, from DNA sequencing, neuroimaging, and complex longitudinal studies. Both the collaboration with NIH funded scientists and original statistics research require a modern statistical computing environment. We propose to create such an environment with the purchase of a Sun Enterprise 6500 Server. The new system will increase the capacity of the Department and Center to support NIH investigators and to conduct original statistical research by a factor of approximately five for smaller jobs and by a factor of 50-100 for larger jobs requiring substantial memory. It will also overcome the current deficiency in computing that makes innovation difficult. The major users of the new system consist of 15 NIH investigators whose research spans four areas: studies of mental disorders, quantitative genetics, studies of human development and aging, and environmental health sciences. The Department of Biostatistics, in collaboration with the School of Public Health Computing Center, has the requisite expertise to efficiently and equitably manage the new system to the maximum benefit of the major and other users. The Department will provide system administration, user support, and will share scientific oversight with the Computing Center and representatives of the major users. Through the implementation of this new system, participating NIH researchers at Johns Hopkins Schools of Public Health, Medicine, and Nursing, the Johns Hopkins Hospital, and the Kennedy Krieger Institute, will receive the best possible statistical support and will have access to improved statistical methods through original research conducted in this new computing environment.