Medical College of Wisconsin
Medical College of Wisconsin Cancer Center

Biostatistics Shared Resource (BSSR)

The Biostatistics Shared Resource supports the spectrum of cancer-related research activities, including: experimental design, sample size calculation, randomization, analysis plans, data analysis, grant and manuscript preparation, full clinical trial support, and innovative targeted methods development.

Scheduling, Location, and Hours of Operation

Center for Cancer Discovery: N1164, Floor 1 | Monday–Friday from 8 a.m.-5 p.m.
For support, please email the BSSR Director, Paul L. Auer at pauer@mcw.edu.
Submit a BSSR iLab request

Services and Technologies

The major categories of service provided by BSSR include grant development, collaboration, consultation, clinical trial support, and manuscript preparation.

View the FY26 BSSR price sheet (PDF)

all
Grant Development
  • Preliminary data analysis including sample size determination, randomization, and analysis plans
  • Study design and development of statistical analysis plans for preclinical, animal, and observational studies
  • Hypothesis development
Collaboration
  • Attendance at Program and transdisciplinary team meetings
  • Developing databases for data capture and management
  • Mentoring junior investigators
Consultation
  • Power and sample size calculations
  • Cancer-related data analysis and interpretation of results including image and spatial datasets, survival analysis, measurement error, machine learning, and genomics
  • Standard data analysis and development of innovative machine learning approaches for analyzing complex datasets
Clinical Trial Development, Monitoring, and Analysis
  • Comprehensive support for trials from development of the protocol and statistical analysis plan through implementation, monitoring, analysis and preparation of final reports and manuscripts
  • BSSR faculty develop trial design (e.g., Bayesian adaptive designs and dose-finding trials) and advocate for trials that maximize efficiency while addressing the trial’s objectives, patient protection and confidentiality, and ethical considerations
  • Data analytics of investigator-initiated trials, including novel trial methodology development, standard protocol design and development, case report form review, safety monitoring and reporting to the Data and Safety Monitoring Committee, for all phases of clinical trials
Manuscript Preparation
  • Preparation of tables, figures, and text for Methods
  • Help with interpretation of results including reporting of results via presentations and scientific publication and reviewing the quantitative and statistical aspects of manuscripts
biostatistics

iLab Requests; Funding Support

iLab Requests and Support

Funding Support
Investigators should first utilize all available funding resources (below). If funding support is still needed, contact the Shared Resource Director to discuss Cancer Center support.

Researcher at Monitor

Shared Resource Acknowledgement

A condition for using MCW Cancer Center supported Shared Resources is that each Shared Resource is acknowledged in the publication. These acknowledgements enable the Cancer Center to measure and document Shared Resource productivity, impact, and service to members.

View Shared Resource acknowledgement instructions. (PDF)

Scientist in lab

We Value Your Feedback

Feedback on Shared Resources is essential to ensuring they remain efficient, responsive, and aligned with evolving research needs. We encourage all users to share their input.

Submit your feedback

Leadership and Staff

headshot

Paul Auer, PhD

Director, Biostatistics Shared Resource

pauer@mcw.edu

View Profile

Staff Members

headshot

Michael Martens, MD

Assistant Professor

mmartens@mcw.edu

View Profile

Notable Publications

Covariate-Adjusted Group Sequential Comparisons of Survival Probabilities. (Zhang P, Logan B, Martens MJ) Stat Med 2025 Dec;44(28-30):e70339. PMID: 41350757; DOI: 10.1002/sim.70339; Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-105023969704

Race-related host and microbe transcriptomic signatures in triple-negative breast cancer. (Kumar R, Duyar-Ayerdi S, Sundaresan A, Srinivasasainagendra V, Pedamallu CS, Behring M, Chandrashekar DS, Eltoum IE, Varambally S, Tiwari HK, Shrestha S, Auer PL, Chaudhary LN, Kirby JR, Yates C, Manne U, Ojesina AI) NPJ Breast Cancer 2025 Aug 08;11(1):87. PMID: 40781241; PMCID: PMC12334597; DOI: 10.1038/s41523-025-00806-y; Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-105012896561

A Polygenic Risk Score for Late Bladder Toxicity Following Radiotherapy for Non-Metastatic Prostate Cancer. (Farazi M, Yang X, Gehl CJ, Barnett GC, Burnet NG, Chang-Claude J, Parker CC, Dunning AM, Azria D, Choudhury A, Rancati T, De Ruysscher D, Seibold P, Sperk E, Talbot CJ, Veldeman L, Webb AJ, Elliott R, Aguado-Barrera ME, Carballo AM, Fuentes-Ríos O, Gómez-Caamaño A, Peleteiro P, Vega A, Ostrer H, Rosenstein BS, Saito S, Parliament M, Usmani N, Marples B, Chen Y, Morrow G, Messing E, Janelsins MC, Hall W, West CML, Auer PL, Kerns SL) Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2025 May 02;34(5):795-804. PMID: 40029246; PMCID: PMC12048210; DOI: 10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-24-1228; Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-105004381541

Gilteritinib as Post-Transplant Maintenance for AML With Internal Tandem Duplication Mutation of FLT3. (Levis MJ, Hamadani M, Logan B, Jones RJ, Singh AK, Litzow M, Wingard JR, Papadopoulos EB, Perl AE, Soiffer RJ, Ustun C, Ueda Oshima M, Uy GL, Waller EK, Vasu S, Solh M, Mishra A, Muffly L, Kim HJ, Mikesch JH, Najima Y, Onozawa M, Thomson K, Nagler A, Wei AH, Marcucci G, Geller NL, Hasabou N, Delgado D, Rosales M, Hill J, Gill SC, Nuthethi R, King D, Wittsack H, Mendizabal A, Devine SM, Horowitz MM, Chen YB, BMT-CTN 1506/MORPHO Study Investigators) J Clin Oncol 2024 May 20;42(15):1766-1775. PMID: 38471061; PMCID: PMC11095884; DOI: 10.1200/JCO.23.02474; Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85193456124

Identification of novel loci for multiple myeloma when comparing with its precursor condition monoclonal gammopathy of unknown significance. (Buradagunta CS, Arsang-Jang S, Massat B, Thapa B, Patek V, D'Souza A, Auer P, Urrutia R, Janz S, Dhakal B, Hari P, Dong J) Leukemia 2024 Feb;38(2):383-385. PMID: 37919604; DOI: 10.1038/s41375-023-02078-6; Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85175540732

Nonparametric failure time: Time-to-event machine learning with heteroskedastic Bayesian additive regression trees and low information omnibus Dirichlet process mixtures. (Sparapani RA, Logan BR, Maiers MJ, Laud PW, McCulloch RE) Biometrics 2023 Dec;79(4):3023-3037. PMID: 36932826; PMCID: PMC10505620; DOI: 10.1111/biom.13857; Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85153305626  

Biologic Assignment Trial of Reduced-Intensity Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation Based on Donor Availability in Patients 50-75 Years of Age With Advanced Myelodysplastic Syndrome. (Nakamura R, Saber W, Martens MJ, Ramirez A, Scott B, Oran B, Leifer E, Tamari R, Mishra A, Maziarz RT, McGuirk J, Westervelt P, Vasu S, Patnaik M, Kamble R, Forman SJ, Sekeres MA, Appelbaum F, Mendizabal A, Logan B, Horowitz M, Cutler C) J Clin Oncol 2021 Oct 20;39(30):3328-3339. PMID: 34106753; PMCID: PMC8791814; DOI: 10.1200/JCO.20.03380; Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85112086284

National Marrow Donor Program-Sponsored Multicenter, Phase II Trial of HLA-Mismatched Unrelated Donor Bone Marrow Transplantation Using Post-Transplant Cyclophosphamide. (Shaw BE, Jimenez-Jimenez AM, Burns LJ, Logan BR, Khimani F, Shaffer BC, Shah NN, Mussetter A, Tang XY, McCarty JM, Alavi A, Farhadfar N, Jamieson K, Hardy NM, Choe H, Ambinder RF, Anasetti C, Perales MA, Spellman SR, Howard A, Komanduri KV, Luznik L, Norkin M, Pidala JA, Ratanatharathorn V, Confer DL, Devine SM, Horowitz MM, Bolaños-Meade J) J Clin Oncol 2021 Jun 20;39(18):1971-1982. PMID: 33905264; PMCID: PMC8260905; DOI: 10.1200/JCO.20.03502; Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85108386444

Double unrelated umbilical cord blood vs HLA-haploidentical bone marrow transplantation: the BMT CTN 1101 trial. (Fuchs EJ, O'Donnell PV, Eapen M, Logan B, Antin JH, Dawson P, Devine S, Horowitz MM, Horwitz ME, Karanes C, Leifer E, Magenau JM, McGuirk JP, Morris LE, Rezvani AR, Jones RJ, Brunstein CG) Blood 2021 Jan 21;137(3):420-428. PMID: 33475736; PMCID: PMC7819761; DOI: 10.1182/blood.2020007535; Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85092507677