ISCB SHORT COURSE IN ADVANCED BIOSTATISTICS – HOSTED BY ACCELSIORS

Title of Course: The design and analysis of n-of-1 Trials
Presenter: Stephen Senn,
Date, Venue: 9 November, 2018 | Accelsiors CRO - Event Hall, Budapest, Hungary

Stephen Senn held a professionally very fruitful ISCB-supported course, entitled The design and analysis of n-of-1 trials, covering applications of sophisticated statistical methods in the fields of chronic or rare diseases, comprising opportunities and challenges in design and analysis of special, more complex trials with personalized treatment. The course was held in Budapest at the Event Hall of Acclesiors CRO, on 9th of November, 2018.

At this professional course in advanced biostatistics Stephen Senn provided a detailed overview on the use of n-of-1 trials (these are trials in which patients are treated with two or more treatments on multiple occasions).

Professor Senn showed that different purposes require different analyses and that these in turn may produce quite different results. This type of trials can have many different purposes and can be analyzed in different frameworks. N-of-1 trials have great potential both in early and late phase clinical development programmes for chronic or rare diseases. For example, they can be used among others for proof of concept and dose-finding, also for understanding and estimating components of variance, and may also be applied in clinical studies for rare diseases.

Stephen Sennthe presenter for the short course is a Statistical Consultant, he has had a wide range of experiences in academia and the pharmaceutical industry. He is a recipient of Bradford Hill medal of the Royal Statistical Society and the George C. Challis prize for biostatistics of the University of Florida. From 2011 to 2018 he was Head of the Competence Center for Methodology and Statistics at the Luxembourg Institute of Health and was previously a Professor in Statistics at the University of Glasgow (2003) and University College London (1995-2003). He is the author of more than 250 scientific publications including three influential books in biostatistics and clinical research. His expertise is in statistical methods for drug development and statistical inference and he is well known as a lively and stimulating speaker on the statistical aspects of clinical trials.

The organizers are delighted that a lot of interested biostatisticians and drug development professionals visited the event from around Europe to learn in details about the topic how to design and analyze n-of-1 trials. The participants of the event also had a fruitful professional discussion both on recent development issues and high-level research in biostatistics.

As the host of this ISCB short course , Accelsiors is proud to have the chance to support and assist in sharing of scientific and recent practical knowledge aimed at increasing effectiveness of clinical drug research. This short course is the third in a series of courses in advanced biostatistics hosted by Accelsiors:

  •   2014 - Frank Bretz and Franz König: Novel approaches to multiple test problems, with applications to adaptive designs and dose finding,
  •    2016 - Stephen Senn: Statistical Issues in Drug Development
  •    2018 - Stephen Senn: The design and analysis of n-of-1 trials