Division of Biostatistics & Bioinformatics

Biostatistics interns will have the opportunity to:

• Research statistical topics relevant to biomedical research.
• Apply statistical thinking to biomedical research problems.
• Analyze real-world biomedical data and interpret the results.
• Develop statistical computing/programming skills in R, SAS, and other software.
• Develop and practice communication of statistical methods, analyses, and results through written and oral presentations.
• Receive guidance and mentoring regarding their future studies and career trajectory.

Bioinformatics interns will have the opportunity to:

• Research bioinformatics and computational biology topics relevant to biomedical research.
• Apply bioinformatics approaches to biomedical research problems.
• Analyze real-world genomic and other high-throughput biomedical data and interpret the results.
• Develop bioinformatics programming skills in R, Python, and other commonly used tools and software.
• Build expertise in HPC, SLURM, and Bash scripting.
• Develop and practice communication of bioinformatics methods, analyses, and results through written and oral presentations.
• Receive guidance and mentoring regarding their future studies and career trajectory.

The internship's core is a mentored research project. It is supplemented by a number of other components.

• Mentored research project. Interns work on individual projects, each under the supervision of a faculty member. The project typically involves specification of the substantive research question(s) to be addressed, data management/cleaning, consideration of relevant analyses methods, data analyses, and interpretation of results. The work is intended to promote critical and scientific thinking. Interns are expected to both apply their prior classroom knowledge and explore new (bio)statistical/bioinformatics methods. At the end of the summer, interns deliver an oral presentation of their work (30 min presentation + 20 min discussion) and submit a brief written report (2-3 pages).
  
  The following is a list of recent intern projects (with preceptors in parentheses):
  • “The Impact of the Proprietary Milestones Application on Patient Length of Stay” (Dr. Daskalakis, Biostatistics)
  • “Predicting confirmed high HbA1c in diabetic patients who screen positive for a nutrition intervention” (Dr. Leiby, Biostatistics)
  • “Metrics of Spatial Interaction between Cancer and Immune Cells in NSCLC Tumor Microenvironment” (Dr. Chervoneva, Biostatistics)
  • “Associations Between Metabolic Dysfunction-Associated Steatotic Liver Disease and Chemotherapy Treatments for Pancreatic Cancer” (Dr. Koeneman , Biostatistics)
  • “Association Between Historical HOLC Neighborhood Classification and Overall Mortality Among Prostate Cancer Patients in Philadelphia County” (Dr. Keith, Biostatistics)
  • "Looking at long non-coding RNAs in a melanoma PDX cohort" (Dr. Mitra, Bioinformatics)
  • "Single-cell Analysis for LASVRAB vaccines” (Dr. Xu, Bioinformatics)
• Seminars. Interns attend 2-3 seminars (talks by Division faculty or external guest speakers).
• Journal club sessions. Interns participate in 2-4 journal club sessions, during which a published paper is discussed. Each journal club has a designated leader who presents the main points of the paper and guides the discussion.
  Each intern is expected to lead one of these journal club sessions. (i.e., prepare a brief presentation and guide the discussion).
• Clinical trial protocol review (optional for bioinformatics interns). Jefferson's Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center has a scientific Protocol Review and Monitoring Committee (PRMC) that reviews all oncology clinical trial protocols before they are activated at Jefferson.
  Each Biostatistics intern is expected to conduct an informal review of one such oncology protocol under the guidance of a designated faculty member, and then attend the PRMC meeting during which the protocol is formally reviewed.
• Manuscript review (subject to availability). Research manuscripts submitted to journals for publication undergo peer review.
  Each intern will be expected to perform a review of one such manuscript under the guidance of a designated faculty member

• The internship duration is 8-10 weeks, typically from beginning of June to mid-August. However, start/end dates are somewhat flexible and are arranged with each intern before the start of their internship.
• Interns are expected to work full-time (35 hrs/week).
• Interns are expected to work on site at least 3-4 days/week (remote work allowed for 1-2 days/week). Each intern’s work schedule is arranged with their preceptor.
• Interns are hired as employees and paid an hourly wage, which depends on the intern's academic level and experience ($22-$27/hr).
• Interns are paid bi-weekly.

Applicants may be current students or recent graduates, and should have interest in pursuing a career in (bio)statistics, bioinformatics, computational biology, data science, or other similar quantitative field, with a focus on the biomedical sciences.

• For undergraduate students (or those with an undergraduate degree), any degree program is acceptable, but applicants should have some computing/programming experience (Biostatistics applicants should also have some mathematical/analytical skills).
• For graduate students (or those holding a graduate degree), the degree program (or prior degree) should ideally be in (bio)statistics, bioinformatics, computational biology, data science, computer science, or similar quantitative field. However, applicants with other backgrounds (e.g., social sciences, public health) will be considered, as long as they have some computing/programming experience and quantitative skills.

Please apply via our Online Application.

Application window is October 10 through February 15. Applicatons are reviewed and interview invitations are sent on a rolling basis.

For more information, please contact:

• for general information and questions about the Biostatistics program: Dr. Constantine Daskalakis, constantine.daskalakis@jefferson.edu
• for questions about the Bioinformatics program: Dr. Yang Xu, yang.xu@jefferson.edu