MCATS can provide collaborative Biostatistics and Health Economics research support within departmental panel grant pitch reviews, research and grant development, analysis and publication. Contact us through the MCATS project form, and review our collaboration agreement. For other queries email mcats-info@unimelb.edu.au.
-
Research support
Access to researchers embedded within peer academic groups provides high standards of collaborative research support.
-
Courses
Our program of courses and seminars covers study design, protocol development, REDCap and health economics.
-
Research governance and ethics
There are a number of internationally recognised resources developed to support research.
-
MCATS Research Journey
The MCATS Research Journey
Training timetable
Please use the MCATS project form as an expression of interest, and to provide us with your research project needs.
THE MCATS PROCESS IN 4 STEPS
- A query is submitted to MCATS manager using MCATS online contact form
- MCATS manager acknowledges receipt of enquiry and uploads into MCATS system
- MCATS academic contacts you to make a meeting. The first 1 ½ hour is free. This meeting will discuss the information provided and next steps
- Where further work is agreed to continue with MCATS (grant support, subscription) a collaboration agreement is signed to document scope, objectives and activities. This document also summarises the MCATS intent, processes and costs.
- mcats-info@unimelb.edu.au
- Postal Address
- c/o Melbourne Medical school, The University of Melbourne, Grattan Street, Victoria, 3010
The Melbourne Clinical and Translational Sciences (MCATS) research platform seeks to facilitate and collaborate to ensure resources are visible and mechanisms are in place for accessing the core research methods of Biostatistics, Health Economics or Health Informatics. These areas are a necessity for good research design and governance in order to generate research findings that lead to improved health care and informed health service reform.
-
Biostatistics
Biostatistics underpins the sound application of statistical methods in clinical research.
-
Health Economics
Economic evaluation is widely used to assess many new health care interventions and technologies.
-
Health Informatics
Health informatics in the clinical and biomedical realm to aide in the optimal use of information. Includes REDCap.
-
Research Quality and Integrity
Mutually beneficial relationships and resources allow the University and partners to work together, sharing resources and knowledge.
MCATS overview and testimonials
-
I have a dataset I would like you to review, how do I prepare my data?
MCATS works collaboratively with SCC. A good summary can be found here
-
I need to learn how to use REDCap
Free online REDCap training is available.
-
Do you have a brochure?
The MCATS brochure can be found here
-
If I pay for a service why would MCATS academics be on a publication?
MCATS is a collaborative research support platform where academics are funded for the work they provide. Aligning with academic collaborative principles, MCATS follows the University of Melbourne Authorship Policy (MPF1181) which states:
"5 Authorship. Introduction: The outcomes of research may be disseminated in a variety of ways but enduring forms, such as journal articles, are particularly important and to be an author for such a form is meritorious. To be named as an author, a researcher must have made a substantial scholarly contribution to the work and be able to take responsibility for at least that part of the work they contributed. Attribution of authorship depends to some extent on the discipline, but in all cases, authorship must be based on substantial contributions in a combination of:
- conception and design of the project
- analysis and interpretation of research data
- drafting significant parts of the work or critically revising it so as to contribute to the interpretation.
The right to authorship is not tied to position or profession and does not depend on whether the contribution was paid for or voluntary. It is not enough to have provided materials or routine technical support, or to have made the measurements on which the publication is based. Substantial intellectual involvement is required. A person who qualifies as an author must not be included or excluded as an author without their permission. This should be in writing, and include a brief description of their contribution to the work."
The NHMRC also has guidelines.
-
Do I have a say in who I will work with at MCATS with my successful grant?
Yes. Lead researchers will always have a say in which statisticans / health economists will be involved in a successful grant application, in particular the analysis stage.
The statistician who is the CI or AI on the grant application will act in the role of CI or AI similar to any other CI and AI on the grant after the grant is successful. This means that the statistician on the successful grant will be the primary contact person for the duration of the grant and he/she may supervise another statistician within MCATS who will do the analysis.
-
I am a researcher from the MMS, how do I access support?
The Melbourne Medical School (MMS) has invested in biostatistics support for two years Two new full-time MCATS staff members have been recruited for two years with the first commencing employment in May 2018, and the second starting in November 2018. Researchers with ideas or proposals that have been through departmental or peer review can enter their research information using the MCATS online portal.
-
Why do I need to pay for this work?
In an 'ideal world' this platform would be part of University Infrastructure and fully funded to provide services (free) to University researchers.
However at this time, MCATS is partially funded through a University of Melbourne Chancellery fund called the Melbourne Collaborative Research Infrastructure Program. This funding source requires cost recovery with funds reinvested into the platform and the goal to have a fully sustained business unit that does not require University investment.
-
What is the MCATS collaboration agreement?
The MCATS collaboration agreement is a plain English document that is pivotal to ensure all parties understand the process, needs, costs and expectations of the collaborative work. This in principle agreement is required by RIC and has been reviewed by the University lawyers for integrity.
- Professor Julie Simpson
Director of MCATS
Julie has over 20 years experience as a biostatistician contributing to clinical and population health research. Previously she has worked at St Thomas's Hospital, London, Mahidol-Oxford Research Programme in Thailand, University of Aberdeen, and Cancer Council of Victoria. Her main research areas are: the integration of biostatistics and mathematical modelling to improve the control of infectious diseases and statistical methods for handling missing data in observational cohorts. Julie is Head of the Biostatistics Unit, and Deputy Head of Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, and a NHMRC Senior Research Fellow and Chief Investigator of the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence for Biostatistics.
- Professor Leonid Churilov
Biostatistics lead at Austin Hospital
Leonid is an internationally recognized expert in the use of health analytics and statistical modelling for decision support in clinical and health care systems. He is an Associate Editor of the “Operations Research for Health Care” and an Editorial Board member for four other journals. He contributes biostatistical, health analytics, and decision modelling expertise to several large international clinical trials and to a number of smaller pre-clinical, clinical, imaging, and service evaluation studies in the areas of general neurology, stroke, epilepsy, spinal cord injury, diabetes, gynaecology, and anaesthesia.
- Associate Professor Kim Dalziel
Kim is Head of the Health Economics Unit of 20 researchers at The University of Melbourne. She was awarded an NHMRC Investigator Award (2021-25) and is a Dame Kate Campbell Fellow in Research Excellence with the University of Melbourne (2020-24).
Kim has skills in leading health economics research, building health economics models, health technology assessment, patient-reported outcomes measurement and health services research. She specialises in child health. She has published over 80 papers and has made significant contributions to the area economic evaluation alongside pediatric clinical trials.
- Associate Professor Douglas Iain Ross Boyle
Dougie is the Director of the Research Information Technology Unit (R2). Since 2006 Doug has been researching, developing and implementing systems for the ethical acquisition of record-linkable data for audit, research and health surveillance. Consent management, security and privacy-protecting record linkage are key components and research areas. The software systems (GRHANITE™) are now responsible for the largest collections of record-linkable primary care data ever accumulated in Australia. Prior to emigrating from Scotland in 2006, Doug worked in a similar capacity to develop and implement technologies for wide-scale data acquisition. His system SCI-DC Network is internationally recognised and is playing a continuing key role in the support of population-based diabetes health service provision across Scotland.
- Ms Sabine Braat
Deputy head of MCATS biostatistics
Sabine completed her postgraduate training in Belgium (Master of Science in Biostatistics preceded by Master in Applied Mathematics) following undergraduate study in mathematics. She has over 15 years’ experience working as a statistician in the pharmaceutical industry in the Netherlands where she contributed to the design, analysis and reporting of clinical trials ranging from the early clinical phases (Phase II) to post-marketing (Phase IV) in a range of medical areas.
Dr An Duy Tran
MCATS Senior Health Economics Lead
An is a Senior Research Fellow at the Health Economics Unit, Centre for Health Policy, University of Melbourne. He has over 10 years’ experience working in health economics and economic evaluation of healthcare interventions. Before joining the University of Melbourne in October 2016, he was a Post-doc Researcher and Assistant Professor in Health Technology Assessment at the Maastricht University and Utrecht University in The Netherlands. His expertise includes design of economic evaluation studies, statistical analyses of costs and health outcomes, development of decision-analytic models for cost-effectiveness and cost-utility analyses, and development of patient-level simulation models to estimate the long-term impact of treatment strategies on health outcomes and healthcare resource utilisation in patients with chronic diseases.
.
- Dr Anurika de Silva
Anurika has a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Statistics (Hons) from the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka and a PhD in Biostatistics from the University of Melbourne, Australia. Her PhD involved the evaluation of multiple imputation methods for handling missing longitudinal data. She has worked in public health research for 2 years and her expertise is in the statistical analyses of randomised controlled trials and observational studies. She is also currently the course coordinator for the Master of Public Health course on Linear and Logistic Regression. Previously, she has worked as an Assistant Lecturer at the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka.
- Dr Digsu Koye
Digsu is a clinical epidemiologist with interest in big data analyses, data linkage and design of observational studies in the fields of diabetes and cardiovascular disease. He completed his PhD at Monash University in 2018. Prior to this, he had been teaching and conducting research at the Institute of Public Health of the University of Gondar in Ethiopia for 6 years. Digsu completed his undergraduate degree in Public Health, with an MPH in Epidemiology and Biostatistics, at the University of Gondar. Currently, he is conducting clinical epidemiological research in the fields of metabolic diseases using large patient-level electronic medical records and administrative data.
Mr David Ormiston-Smith
David provides Health Informatics expertise to MCATS. David has experience with Natural Language Technologies (Python, web, data-mining, nlp) and supports REDCap users.
- Dr Karen Lamb
Karen has a BSc (Hons) in Statistics from the University of Glasgow, Scotland and a PhD in Mathematics and Statistics from the University of Strathclyde, Scotland where her research focused on the mathematical and statistical modelling of pneumococcal carriage following vaccine intervention. Karen has been employed as a biostatistician in public health research for more than 10 years. She has previously worked at the MRC Social & Public Health Sciences Unit in Glasgow, the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne and the Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition at Deakin University in Melbourne. She has experience providing statistical support in the design, analysis and reporting of observational studies, quasi-experimental studies and randomised controlled trials.
Shaie O'Brien
Shaie is the MCATS Manager. With her background in both research administration and clinical trial coordination, Shaie has a strong track record in project management, ethics and governance.
- Dr Emily Karahalios
Emily completed her Honours Bachelor of Science from the University of Toronto, Canada, and Master of Public Health and PhD in Epidemiology & Biostatistics from The University of Melbourne. Emily is a Senior Lecturer in Biostatistics in the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne and is the coordinator for the Master of Biostatistics. Emily’s expertise is in the statistical methods for systematic reviews (i.e. pairwise and network meta-analysis). She is a member of Cochrane and statistical editor for the Cochrane Incontinence Group. She has previously worked in the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, as clinical biostatistician at Western Health, and at Cancer Council of Victoria.
Dr Rob Mahar
Robert Mahar received a PhD in Biostatistics at the University of Melbourne in 2019 following his completion of a Master of Biostatistics at the University of Queensland in 2014. He is a statistician with a research focus on applied Bayesian methods, and novel experimental design and analysis, particularly for adaptive clinical trials and sequentially multiple assignment randomised trials. His doctoral research focused on developing new models of lung function from multiple-breath washout and complex tidal flow waveform data, with an emphasis on computational Bayesian and spectral analytical methods. Prior to undertaking his graduate studies, he was a professional economist with a focus on both domestic and international housing and retail markets.
Vanessa Pac Soo
Vanessa is a Research Fellow in Biostatistics. She completed a Bachelor of Business from Monash University and Master of Statistics and Operations Research from RMIT University. She is currently studying the Master of Biostatistics at the University of Melbourne (anticipated completion mid-2021). At MISCH, she contributes biostatistical expertise to the design, analysis and reporting of randomised trials and observational studies. Prior to joining the University of Melbourne, Vanessa worked as a data analyst and public health officer.