The Influence of Biostatistics at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute

Since the early 1950s, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHBLI) has conducted a long series of influential randomized clinical trials in heart, lung, and blood diseases. The biostatisticians at the Institute have been central to the design, conduct, monitoring, and final analyses of these trials. The uniquely favorable deck of cards the group of biostatisticians at the Institute has been dealt over the six and half decades of the group's life has led to contributions that have had a major impact on the fields of biostatistics and clinical trials. The leaders of the NHLBI and its several Divisions have valued the independence, creativity, and collaborative interactions of statisticians within the Institute. The medical problems the Institute faced impelled the statisticians to develop methodology that would address questions of great public importance. Perhaps most importantly, the individual members of the group had a collective vision passed from member to member over time that new methodology must fit the questions being asked. The group has always had the technical ability to develop new methods and the conviction that they were responsible for ensuring that they could explain their methods to the clinicians with whom they worked.