For the first time since 2019, the Center for Quantitative Sciences will host its annual Summer Institute in person, with four weeklong courses held on the Vanderbilt University campus, at 2525 West End Avenue. This year’s offerings include a brand-new course on the National Institutes of Health’s All of Us Research Program, a large-scale initiative with the mission of building “one of the most diverse health databases in history.” Vanderbilt graduate and All of Us CEO Josh Denny, MD, was a founding director of Vanderbilt’s Center for Precision Medicine and a longtime collaborator with course directors Paul Harris, PhD, and Qingxia “Cindy” Chen, PhD. Harris, professor of biomedical informatics, biomedical engineering, and biostatistics, is the creator of REDCap and ResearchMatch and principal investigator of All of Us’s Data and Research Center (DRC). Chen, whose roles include vice chair of education for the Department of Biostatistics, is an All of Us investigator and an executive leader on the Summer Institute team.
“Introduction to the All of Us Research Program” will take place July 17–21 from 1 to 4 p.m., with 7 hours of lectures and 4 two-hour labs where participants will be guided through hands-on exercises with survey, electronic health record (EHR), genetic, and mobile health (Fitbit) data. DRC members will join Harris and Chen to provide practical tips and insights on using All of Us Workbench tools.
The morning course (9 a.m.–noon) the week of July 17–21 will be “Regression and Modeling in R,” taught by research assistant professor of biostatistics Gustavo Amorim, PhD. Amorim has previously led three- and four-day bootcamps and workshops in R in Mozambique and online. He is also first author of a Journal of the Royal Statistical Society paper that made use of Vanderbilt Comprehensive Care Clinic data and won the 2022 Methods Publication Award in the Department of Biostatistics.
The second week of the Summer Institute (July 24–28) will feature two core offerings: “Big Data in Biomedical Research,” taught by Qi Liu, PhD, associate professor of biostatistics and biomedical informatics, and Yu Shyr, PhD, professor of biostatistics, biomedical informatics, and health policy, and “Introduction to Causal Inference,” taught by Andrew Spieker, PhD, assistant professor of biostatistics. Led by award-winning instructors, these well-reviewed short courses provide participants with an abundance of materials to assist them with real-world data analysis beyond the classroom. “Big Data in Biomedical Research” has been an Institute course since 2015, and “Introduction to Causal Inference” since 2019, with the 2021 and 2022 editions delivered online.
Tuition for each course is $700 for VU/VUMC faculty and staff, and $450 for VU/VUMC students, trainees, and postdocs, with a 20% discount on registrations received before June 1. Parking and food are included, with continental breakfast for morning course participants and boxed lunches for all. Space in the All of Us course is limited to 30 participants. To learn more about each course and to enroll, visit the Summer Institute webpage.