Scott Evans, Director of the Biostatistics Center, Professor and founding Chair of the new Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics has received and $18.6 million award for leadership of the Statistical and Data Management Center for the Antibacterial Resistance Leadership Group (ARLG), a collaborative clinical research network that prioritizes, designs, and executes clinical research to reduce the public health threat of antibacterial resistance.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 35,000 people die in the United States each year from antibiotic-resistant infections. As antibiotic-resistant bacteria become more urgent threats worldwide, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, renewed funding over seven years for the ARLG. This global consortium of scientific experts leads a comprehensive clinical research network overseeing research on important scientific questions related to antibacterial resistance. NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. stated “The Antibacterial Resistance Leadership Group oversees a unique clinical research network that has made significant contributions to improving the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of antibacterial-resistant infections, and we are pleased to continue our support.” The ARLG will emphasize the development of better countermeasures against antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The effort includes a diverse range of innovative, non-antibiotic approaches such as vaccines, bacteriophages (viruses that selectively kill bacteria), and approaches that alter a person’s microbiome to fight infection. The ARLG will support improved diagnostic tests for identifying antibiotic-resistant microbes and conduct research on optimizing the use of existing antibiotics.
Dr. Evans is a recipient of the Mosteller Statistician of the Year Award, the Robert Zackin Distinguished Collaborative Statistician Award for contributions to the AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG), an elected member of the International Statistical Institute (ISI), and is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association (ASA), Society for Clinical Trials (SCT), and the Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA).