Biostatistics What is Biostatistics When statistics are used

Biostatistics

What is Biostatistics? • . When statistics are used in biology and applied to many biological topics, it is called 'Biostatistics • Biostatistics is the branch of statistics responsible for the proper interpretation of scientific data generated in the biology, Biotechnology, public health and other health sciences (i. e. , the biomedical sciences). or • Biostatistics (or biometry) is the application of statistics to a wide range of topics in biology. The science of biostatistics encompasses the design of biological experiments, especially in medicine, pharmacy, agriculture and fishery; the collection, summarization, and analysis of data from those experiments; and the interpretation of, and inference from, the results. A major branch of this is medical biostatistics, [1] which is exclusively concerned with medicine and health.

• In these sciences, subjects (Plants, Microbes, Humans, patients, mice, cells, • etc. ) exhibit considerable variation in their response to stimuli. This variation may be due to different treatments or it may be due to chance, measurement error, or other characteristics of the individual subjects. • Some of the most important reasons for statistics include: • • Statistics are used to measure and analyze the findings and results from experiments and tests. Relationships and correlations can be assessed and discovered so the cause and effect can be established. Without thorough analysis and the ability to convert findings into statistics that are then presented in any easily understood manner, experiments would be almost useless as the findings could be misunderstood. Presenting the findings statistically ensures they are easier to interpret and take away some important knowledge from the findings.

• Statistics have proven invaluable in modern biological history. • In the 1930 s, it was evidence from statistical analysis that produced the 'modern evolutionary synthesis'. This was developed when there was a huge gap in knowledge between theories in genetics and theories in evolution. Biological studies often involve studying extremely small numbers and microscopic properties, which may come from molecules and atoms, and putting them into statistical form can aid understanding and simplify the process of analyzing. If it were not for statistics in biology, the following biological discoveries may never have been found: • Natural Selection-This was developed by Sir Ronald A. Fisher who needed many statistical methods to help understand, develop and support his work.

• Genetics: Theories surrounding genetics were developed by Sewall G. Wright who used statistics. The causes of evolution and natural selection: Developed by J. B. S Haldane Statistics are often thought to be used more commonly in physics and chemistry due to the fixed nature of many aspects of these sciences where statistics can be analyzed much more simply. • As biological elements are very different, it is not always associated with statistical analysis but statistics are extremely important to biology.

• . Biostatistics is a broad discipline encompassing the application of statistical theory to real-world problems, the practice of designing and conducting biomedical experiments and clinical trials (experiments with human subjects), the study of related computational algorithms and display of data, and the development of mathematical statistical theory. • Biostatistics is integral to the advance of knowledge in biology, health policy, clinical medicine, public health policy, health economics, proteomics, genomics, and other disciplines. At Vanderbilt, biostatisticians facilitate biomedical research by providing methodological expertise and by closely collaborating with scientists and physician researchers

Biostatisticians • Biostatisticians are specialists in the evaluation of data as scientific evidence. • They understand the generic construct of data and they provide the mathematical framework that transcends the scientific context to generalize the findings. • Their expertise includes the design and conduct of experiments, the mode and manner in which data are collected, the analysis of data, and the interpretation of results. • Meaningful generalization of experimental results requires the application of an appropriate mathematical framework for the scientific context. • The validity of research results depends on this application and the reproducibility of the experimental methods. • Biostatisticians use mathematics to enhance science and bridge the gap between theory and practice.

Applications of biostatistics Public health, including epidemiology, health services research, nutrition, environmental health and healthcare policy & management. • Design and analysis of clinical trials in medicine • Assessment of severity state of a patient with prognosis of outcome of a disease. • Population genetics, and statistical genetics in order to link variation in genotype with a variation in phenotype. This has been used in agriculture to improve crops and farm animals (animal breeding). In biomedical research, this work can assist in finding candidates for gene alleles that can cause or influence predisposition to disease in human genetics

• Analysis of genomics data, for example from microarray or proteomics experiments. [3] [4] Often concerning diseases or disease stages. [5] • Ecology, ecological forecasting • Biological sequence analysis[6] • Systems biology for gene network inference or pathways analysis. [7]

Frequency is how often something occurs. • In statistics, a frequency distribution is a table that displays the frequency of various outcomes in a sample. Each entry in the table contains thefrequency or count of the occurrences of values within a particular group or interval, and in this way, the table summarizes the distribution of values in the sample.