Meenakshi Devidas

Meenakshi Devidas is the PI of the grant for the branch of the Children’s Oncology Group Statistics and Data Center (COG SDC) located at the University of Florida. The COG is a NCI sponsored pediatric clinical trials cooperative group with over 200 member research institutions in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Switzerland. Dr. Devidas is the Lead Statistician for the disease area of Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) and resource statistician for Bone tumors (Ewing Sarcoma and Osteosarcoma). In this role, she is responsible for reviewing concept proposals, trial design, sample size calculations, and developing / implementing safety and efficacy monitoring rules for new clinical trials in these disease areas. She is co-investigator on several NIH grants looking at prognostic significance of minimal residual disease and the biology of ALL in children. Her methodological research has focused on statistical issues related to the design and conduct of clinical trials, and the modeling of dose-response curves. Her research has focused on design of randomized Phase II trials, sample size estimations in Phase II trials, design of randomized comparative trials in rare diseases, and efficient two-stage designs for Phase II trials which need to be monitored for insufficient activity (low response rates) and/or excessive early disease progression rates.  Areas of expertise include: Clinical Trials Design, Statistical Applications to Clinical Trials, Survival Analysis, Group Sequential Methods, Generalized Linear Models, Dose-Response Modeling.