6th CEN Conference

Session

IS4: Questions of Experimental Design and Statistical Analysis in Preclinical Research

20 May 2026, 10:45

Room 1 A

Conveners

IS4: Questions of Experimental Design and Statistical Analysis in Preclinical Research

• Florian Frommlet (Medical University Vienna)

23. From design to decision: A case study in preclinical pooled CRISPR demonstrating statistical opportunity

Natasha Karp (AstraZeneca)

20/05/2026, 10:45

invited lecture

Preclinical research is rich with nontrivial design problems that demand statistical leadership. These opportunities exist across in vivo and high-throughput in vitro research systems where statisticians can materially improve translational fidelity by aligning biological questions, design, and analysis to support decision making. In this talk, I will discuss examples that have arisen from a...

151. Optimizing Preclinical Research: Sample Size Planning and Sequential Designs

Frank Konietschke (Institute of Biometry, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin)

20/05/2026, 11:15

oral presentation

Preclinical studies often operate under strict ethical, logistical, and financial constraints, resulting in experiments with very small sample sizes. These limitations pose substantial challenges for statistical inference, reproducibility, and the reliability of decision-making in early-phase biomedical research. This talk provides an overview of key design and analysis issues in preclinical...

35. Statistical Planning and Reporting for Multi-Laboratory Preclinical Trials

María Arroyo Araujo (Berlin Institue of Health, Charité Universitätsmedizin)

20/05/2026, 11:35

oral presentation

Translating preclinical results into effective clinical treatments remains a big challenge in biomedical research. Too often, findings from single-laboratory studies fail to replicate in the preclinical context and further, to show effectiveness in clinical trials. One promising approach to validate exploratory findings is through confirmatory multi-laboratory preclinical trials—studies that...

40. The Experimental Unit Information Index: Balancing Evidentiary Value and Sample Size of Adaptive Designs

Leonhard Held (University of Zurich)

20/05/2026, 11:55

oral presentation

Reducing the number of experimental units is one of the three pillars of the 3R principles (Replace, Reduce, Refine) in animal research. At the same time, statistical error rates need to be controlled to enable reliable inferences and decisions. This paper proposes a novel measure to quantify the evidentiary value of one experimental unit for a given study design. The experimental unit...