SBIR-STTR Award

?Our goal in this project is to develop a web-application to guide researchers in the efficient and effective design of animal studies that balance the competing needs of minimizing animal use and providing rigorous, repeatable results. Three basic ideas, which translate directly into our three specific aims, form the foundation of our proposed tool. First an foremost is to place science before statistics: develop the science plan for a pilot, exploratory o hypothesis-driven study with a clear idea of the effects of interest and structure of the animal selection, housing, and treatment plan. Second is a prospective examination of sample size and effect size through power computations. Third is ready access to expert support with design and statistics professionals. The proposed study is the first phase in the development of a web-application for experimental design and analysis. Our Phase I effort will demonstrate the concept with a prototype dynamic web application that provides qualitative and quantitative decision support together with person-to-person on-line chat capability for rapid technical assistance with study design. In collaboration with our teammates at UC San Diego and UC Davis, we will develop a set of example case studies from their extensive animal research experience, ranging both in study goals and problem complexity. From these examples, we will develop use cases to design the user-system interactions that will form the software development foundation.

Public Health Relevance Statement:


Public Health Relevance:
With mounting evidence of reproducibility problems in life sciences research, there is a strong need for study design support, especially on methodological issues. The proposed web application will deliver assistance to researchers to improve the rigor in design and the repeatability of animal experiments.

Project Terms:
Analysis of Variance; Animal Experimentation; Animal Experiments; Animal Model; Animal Structures; Animal Testing; Animals; Architecture; base; Biological Sciences; Case Study; Cessation of life; Client; cloud based; Collaborations; Complex; Computer software; computerized tools; design; Development; Distress; Engineering; Ensure; Environment; Equilibrium; Ethics; experience; experimental analysis; Experimental Designs; Foundations; Goals; Hand; Housing; improved; interest; Internet; Lead; Life; Linear Models; Literature; Medicine; Methods; Online Systems; Pain; Persons; Phase; prevent; Process; prospective; prototype; public health relevance; Questionnaires; Randomized; Reproducibility; Research; Research Design; Research Personnel; research study; Sample Size; Science; Scientist; Services; Side; Software Design; software development; Software Tools; Staging; Statistical Computing; statistics; System; Techniques; Testing; text searching; Time; tool; Translating; treatment planning; web services

Our goal in this SBIR effort is to produce a web-based suite of tools and services to help researchers design methodologically sound experiments for improved research outcomes and reproducibility of results. DesignAssist provides a promising approach that connects animal researchers to experimental design expertise, delivering a cost-effective solution, alleviating the need for in-house design expertise (an expensive proposition) and improving the reliability of research findings. Our research and development goal in this proposed effort is to develop a conduit between animal researchers and design support, providing user-friendly web-based tool for researchers to (a) develop experimental study goals and translate them into appropriate statistical structure, (b) create experimental plans for randomization and blinding, (c) examine sample size, detectable effect size, and statistical power, (d) undertake data analysis with insights on outlier detection, inclusion/exclusion/stopping criteria, (e) obtain expert advice on all of the above through an on-line chat interface, and (f) obtain a detailed report of experimental design recommendations and their justifications.

Public Health Relevance Statement:
PROJECT NARRATIVE Our goal in this SBIR effort is to produce a web-based suite of tools and services to help researchers design methodologically sound experiments with reproducible results. Experiment reproducibility has become a crucial problem in biomedical research, and improving reliability can have a significant financial impact for the government and industry.

Project Terms:
Address; Analysis of Variance; Animals; Applications Grants; base; Biomedical Research; Biometry; career; Case Study; Client; Collaborations; Communication; Complement; computer science; cost effective; Data; Data Analyses; design; Detection; Development; direct application; Effectiveness; Exclusion; Expenditure; Experimental Designs; experimental study; Failure; flexibility; Goals; Government; Grant; Guidelines; improved; Industry; insight; Instruction; Internet; Interview; Learning; Literature; Measures; Methodology; National Institute of Drug Abuse; Online Systems; Outcome Measure; Outcomes Research; Pharmacologic Substance; Phase; phase 1 study; Postdoctoral Fellow; pre-clinical; pre-clinical research; Process; prototype; Publications; Publishing; quality assurance; Randomized; Recommendation; Reporting; Reproducibility; Reproducibility of Results; Research; research and development; Research Design; Research Personnel; S Phase; Sample Size; Services; Small Business Innovation Research Grant; software development; sound; Structure; Students; success; Survival Analysis; Testing; Text; tool; Translating; Translations; United States National Institutes of Health; user-friendly; walkability; wasting; web app; web-based tool; Work