Feb. 28 | Bioinformatics

"Precision Diabetes Care Powered by Real-World Data and AI: Advancing Equity and Outcomes"

Serena Guo, M.D., Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Pharmaceutical Outcomes and Policy
University of Florida College of Pharmacy

Feb. 14 | Bioinformatics 

"Network Models for Spatial Transcriptomics Data"

Satwik Acharyya, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Biostatistics
School of Public Health
University of Alabama at Birmingham

Jan. 31 | Bioinformatics

"Exploring the Diagnostic and Therapeutic Potential of Extrachromosomal Circular DNA in Cancer"

Sarmad Mehmood, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Department of Genetics
Heersink School of Medicine
University of Alabama at Birmingham

Jan. 24 | Bioinformatics

"Exploring the Dynamics of Super Enhancers in Human Physiology and Disease Through Multi-omics Integrative Analysis"

Yanfeng Zhang, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Genetics
Heersink School of Medicine
University of Alabama at Birmingham

Jan. 17 | Bioinformatics

"Statistical Machine Learning, Causal Inference, and AI for Precision Medicine: Accelerating Diagnosis and Enabling Personalized Treatment"

Cathy Shyr, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Department of Biomedical Informatics
Vanderbilt University Medical Center

Dec. 6 | Bioinformatics

"Biomedical Informatics: Year in Review"

James Cimino, M.D.
Distinguished Professor and Chair, Department of Biomedical Informatics and Data Science
Heersink School of Medicine
University of Alabama at Birmingham

What are the most significant and exciting scientific developments in biomedical informatics over the past year? The Working Groups of the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) provided papers in their respective domains (over 90 in total) representing the most influential or significant work published from September 2023 through September 2024. Summaries of these papers were presented, with a focus on those with the most significant impact, broadest interest, and entertainment value. The presentation focused on clinical informatics, although some developments in bioinformatics and clinical research informatics that have much to offer to domains such as clinical medicine and public health were included.

November 22 | Bioinformatics 

"What Cell Type Heterogeneity Makes Us Rethink about Biomarkers, Disease Subtypes, and Drug Treatment"

Lana Garmire, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics
University of Michigan Medical School

Dr. Garmire explored how cell type heterogeneity reshaped our understanding of biomarkers, disease subtypes, and drug treatments, offering cutting-edge perspectives on precision medicine and bioinformatics.

November 1 | Bioinformatics 

"Informatics as a Bridge from Individual to Population Health"

Abel Kho, M.D.
Director, Institute for Public Health and Medicine (IPHAM) - Center for Health Information Partnerships
Director, Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine
Professor of Medicine, Division of General Internal Medicine
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

Dr. Kho, Director of the Center for Health Information Partnerships at NorthWestern Feinberg Medicine, presents "Informatics as a Bridge from Individual to Population Health."

October 18 | Bioinformatics

“Informatics Meets MLOps: Building and Scaling AI Models Effectively”

Ryan Godwin, Ph.D.
Data scientist and Instructor, Department of Anesthesiology
University of Alabama at Birmingham

The presentation covered key principles of MLOps—automation, monitoring, and governance—and how these practices optimized the AI development lifecycle. Godwin highlighted practical applications through case studies from his recent work, showcasing models that predicted critical outcomes and extracted insights from physiological time series and complex data. These examples illustrated how MLOps enhanced model performance, traceability, and reproducibility across AI projects. The talk offered insights on time savings from adopting MLOps templates and how this framework streamlined AI workflows and increased project success rates.

September 27 | Bioinformatics 

"Enhancing Algorithmic Fairness in Deep Learning: Discovering and Mitigating Spurious Features"

Dongxiao Zhu, Ph.D.
Professor of Computer Science
Founding Director, Wayne AI Research Initiative, College of Engineering
Wayne State University

Dr. Zhu’s most recent research lies in Trustworthy Machine Learning and Applications in Social, Health, and Urban computing with focus on explain ability, adversarial robustness, and fairness. Dr. Zhu is also the Director of Trustworthy AI research lab, and the Director of the Computer Science and AI graduate programs at Wayne State University. In 2022, Dr. Zhu was awarded the Excellence in Research Award for Senior Faculty from the College of Engineering at Wayne State University. Over the past five years, his research has been supported by five NSF grants, two NIH grants, and private foundations, totaling over 6 million dollars.

Algorithmic fairness has emerged as a critical concern in AI research, particularly in the Deep Neural Network (DNN) domain, where complex nonlinear functions must map inputs to outputs using myriad parameters. While recent advances have been made, the problem of ensuring algorithmic fairness in complex DNN predictions remains unresolved, limiting its practical deployment in social contexts. In this presentation, Dr. Zhu will introduce his recent approach to enhancing algorithmic fairness in DNN by identifying and mitigating spurious patterns. The discussion presented innovative attribution-based DNN explanation techniques using both adversarial and de-biased examples.

The quality of the explanations will be evaluated quantitatively and qualitatively using imaging and text datasets from Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) and Transformer architectures. To counteract spurious patterns, Zhu will discuss the recent work on fairness-through-attack for Vision Transformer (ViT), which involves learning spurious features that are exclusively correlated with sensitive attributes (such as gender) and then using adversarial attacks to eliminate the spurious patterns through de-biased self-attention. The discussion surveyed other trustworthy AI systems that have been developed in his research group, which have applications in health, urban, and social computing.

August 16 | Bioinformatics

"Data Science, Bioinformatics, and Multimodal AI/ML for Predictive and Precision Medicine"

Zeeshan Ahmed, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Medicine – Tenure Track and Core Member
Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research
Department of Medicine, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
Rutgers Biomedical and Health Science

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) have advanced in several areas and fields of life; however, their progress in the field of precision and genomic medicine does not match the levels others have attained. Challenges include but are not limited to the handling, integration, and analysis of high volumes of complex multi-omics data, and the expertise needed to implement and execute AI/ML approaches. In this talk, the important role of traditional bioinformatics, data science, classical statistics, and cutting-edge AI/ML techniques utilizing multi-omics and clinical data to support translational research and precision medicine was discussed. Additionally, the presentation discussed disease-specific case studies most importantly related to discovering biomarkers and predicting cardiovascular diseases.

June 13 | Bioinformatics

"From Data to Knowledge to Better Clinical Outcomes: Leveraging Real-World Data to Assess Health Across the Lifespan” 

Mamoun Mardini, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Outcomes and Biomedical Informatics
University of Florida

This presentation explored the transformative potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in biomedical informatics, emphasizing the journey from data to knowledge to better health. The talk began with an exploration of cutting-edge AI and wearable applications in healthcare, setting the stage for a deeper discussion on health assessment across the lifespan.

A key focus of this presentation was on frailty, widely considered a biological syndrome of decreased reserve and resistance to stressors, leading to heightened vulnerability to adverse health outcomes. The research leverages structured Electronic Health Records (EHR), clinical notes, and advanced Large Language Models to develop sophisticated models to improve health outcomes.

The presentation provided insights into the preliminary results, demonstrating the effectiveness of AI-driven techniques in identifying at-risk individuals and the broader clinical implications for enhancing the quality of life in aging populations. It also highlighted the critical intersection of AI, data science, and healthcare, highlighting future directions and potential for significant advancements in the field.

April 12 | Bioinformatics

"Navigating the Genomic Landscape: Translational Bioinformatics Tools for Novel Drug Targets"

Alper Uzun, Ph.D., M.S.
Director of Cancer Bioinformatics at Legorreta Cancer Center
Associate Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
Associate Professor of Pediatrics
Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University

In this seminar, Dr. Uzun presented recent applications from his lab that offers new insights into disease mechanisms and assist in identifying potential drug targets.Dr. Uzun earned a Bachelor of Science degree in biology with a concentration in molecular biology from Istanbul University, followed by a Master's degree in medical biochemistry from Kocaeli University in Turkey.

March 29 | Bioinformatics

"Statistical Inference of Cell-Type-Specific Gene Co-expression Networks with Single-Cell and Bulk RNA-seq Data"

Chang Su, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics
Emory University Rollins School of Public Health

The inference of gene co-expression from microarray and RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq) data has led to rich insights in biological processes and disease mechanisms. However, the bulk samples analyzed in most studies are a mixture of different cell types. As a result, the inferred co-expressions are confounded by varying cell type compositions across samples and only offer an aggregate view of gene regulations that may be distinct across different cell types. In this talk, we introduce two new statistical methods for inferring cell-type-specific co-expression networks based on two distinct types of RNA-seq data. First, to address the unique opportunity and challenge from the recently developed single-cell RNA-seq technology, we have proposed a novel method named CS-CORE that explicitly accounts for the high sequencing depth variations and measurement errors present in single cell data for estimating and testing cell-type-specific co-expression. When applied to analyze multiple scRNA-seq datasets, CS-CORE identified cell-type-specific co-expressions and differential co-expressions that were more reproducible and/or more enriched for relevant biological pathways than those inferred from existing methods. Moreover, to leverage the rich collection of bulk RNA-seq data from the past 15 years, we have also developed CSNet, a flexible framework to estimate cell-type-specific gene co-expression networks from bulk sample data and investigated theoretical properties of the proposed estimator. When applied to analyze bulk RNA-seq data from Alzheimer’s disease (AD), CSNet identified previously unknown cell-type-specific co-expressions among AD risk genes, suggesting cell-type-specific disease pathology in AD. The general framework in CS-CORE and CSNet can be adopted to integrate single cell and bulk RNA-seq data for more efficient use of the accumulating data in different diseases.

Dr. Chang Su is an assistant professor of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics at Emory University. Her main research interest is the development of statistical methods in single-cell genomics and genetics. Her current projects include the analysis of single-cell multi-omics data and genetic data for neurodegenerative, lung, and autoimmune diseases. Her methodological work has been published in leading scientific journals, such as Nature Communications, and leading statistics journals, such as the Journal of the American Statistical Association. Prior to Emory, Dr. Su received her Ph.D. in Biostatistics from Yale University.

March 22 | Bioinformatics

"Clinical Informatics in the Age of Commercial EHRs: The Story of the Vanderbilt Clinical Informatics Center"

Adam Wright, Ph.D., FACMI, FAMIA, FIAHSI
Professor of Department of Biomedical Informatics and Professor of Medicine
Director, Vanderbilt Clinical Informatics Center (VCLIC)
Vanderbilt University Medical Center

Much of the early research on electronic health records (EHRs) and clinical decision support was done using hospitals’ own locally-developed EHR software. However, over the past decade, almost all hospitals have transitioned to commercial EHRs from a relatively small number of commercial vendors. In this talk, Dr. Wright discussed the challenges and opportunities of such conversions, and how we created the Vanderbilt Clinical Informatics Center to enable and sustain research and innovation in our commercial EHR.

Dr. Wright is Professor of Biomedical Informatics and Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and serves as the director of the Vanderbilt Clinical Informatics Center (VCLIC). Dr. Wright’s research interests focus on clinical decision support and machine learning. He has led NIH, AHRQ and ONC-funded projects on clinical problem lists, malfunctions in clinical decision support systems, approaches for sharing clinical decision support nationally and adverse event detection using machine learning. Dr. Wright has over 150 peer-reviewed journal publications, and nearly 100 additional publications, including abstracts, presentations in scientific meetings, books and book chapters. He is also a committed teacher, directing and lecturing in local, national and international courses on biomedical informatics, and teaching medical students.

March 8 | Bioinformatics

"Statistical Methods for Cross-Population Genetic Risk Prediction of Complex Traits"

Hongyu Zhao, Ph.D.
Ira V. Hiscock Professor of Biostatistics and Professor of Genetics
Professor of Statistics and Data Science for the Affiliated Faculty of the Institute for Global Health
Yale University

The polygenic risk score (PRS) has demonstrated great utility in biomedical research through identifying high-risk individuals for different diseases based on genotypes. However, the broader application of PRS to the general population is hindered by the limited transferability of PRS developed in Europeans to non-European populations. To improve PRS prediction accuracy in non-European populations, we have developed Bayesian methods that can effectively integrate genome wide association study (GWAS) summary statistics from different populations. Our methods automatically adjust for linkage disequilibrium differences between populations, and characterize the joint distribution of the effect sizes of a variant in different populations to be null, population specific, or shared with correlation. Through simulations and applications to real traits, we have shown that our methods improve prediction performance over existing methods in non-European populations.

Dr. Zhao is the Ira V. Hiscock Professor of Biostatistics at Yale University. He received his B.S. in Probability and Statistics from Peking University in 1990 and Ph.D. in Statistics from UC Berkeley in 1995. His research interests are the developments and applications of statistical methods in molecular biology, genetics, drug developments, and precision medicine. He is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association, the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is the recipient of multiple honors, including the Mortimer Spiegelman Award for a top statistician in health statistics by the American Public Health Association, and Pao-Lu Hsu Prize by the International Chinese Statistical Association.

February 23 | Bioinformatics

"Enabling the Next Generation of Evidence-Based Medicine with AI and Biomedical Informatics"

Chunhua Weng, Ph.D.
Professor of Biomedical Informatics
Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons

In this talk, Dr. Weng discussed the new opportunities presented jointly by big data, public knowledge, and emerging technologies for us to design the next generation of evidence-based medicine. Dr. Weng explored how large-scale electronic health records data and the latest advances in AI and biomedical informatics can be leveraged to support the life cycle of clinical evidence.

Dr. Chunhua Weng is a Professor of Biomedical Informatics at Columbia University and an elected fellow of American College of Medical Informatics (ACMI) and International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics (IAHSI). She has been co-leading the Biomedical Informatics Resource for the Columbia CTSA (The Irving Institute for Clinical and Translational Science) since 2011. She is also an Associate Editor for Journal of Biomedical Informatics. Dr. Weng holds a Ph.D. in Biomedical and Health Informatics from University of Washington at Seattle. Dr. Weng’s long-term goal is to improve the rigor, efficiency, patient centeredness, and generalizability of clinical research by developing novel informatics and data science methods to address stakeholder needs throughout the life cycle of clinical evidence, from evidence generation to evidence retrieval, appraisal, synthesis and dissemination.

February 2 | Bioinformatics

"Using Raw Audit Logs to Measure Physician Workload, Cognitive Burden, and Burnout"

Thomas Kannampallil, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Anesthesiology
Washington University School of Medicine

Dr. Kannamplallil's presentation highlighted the use of raw audit logs—trails of clinicians’ click stream activities on an EHR—to measure physician workload, cognitive burden and burnout using a combination of statistical and machine learning approaches.

In a series of studies, data pipelines and open-source tools have been developed for translating raw clickstream data into meaningful EHR use metrics that were used for (a) assessing workload, (b) creating objective measures of errors, and (c) assessing the relationship between workload (and cognitive burden) on errors. The presentation described new directions for research using audit logs including novel mathematical and machine learning techniques to characterize tasks, measuring interactive communication (using Epic SecureChat), and comparing audit log-based workload measures and reimbursements.

Dr. Kannampallil's research interests lie at the intersection of computer science, cognitive science, and clinical informatics. Specifically, his research focuses on developing and evaluating intelligent computational tools for improving clinical decision making and patient safety. He is currently the Associate Editor for the Journal of Biomedical Informatics and serve on ONC and PCORI technical expert panels on health information technology. His research is currently funded by 3 R01s from the National Library of Medicine (NLM), National Institute of Aging (NIA), and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). He was elected as a Fellow of the American Medical Informatics Association in 2021.

January 19 | Bioinformatics

"Biomedical Informatics: Year in Review"

James Cimino, MD
Distinguished Professor and Chair, Department of Biomedical Informatics and Data Science
Co-Director, Center for Clinical and Translational Science
Distinguished Professor of Medicine, Division of General Internal Medicine
UAB Heersink School of Medicine

Dr. Cimino’s presentation highlighted the most significant and exciting scientific developments in informatics over the past year. In collaboration with the Working Groups of the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA), Dr. Cimino also presented papers from the past year in informatics with the greatest impact and broadest interest.

October 27 | Bioinformatics

"Genomic Frontiers: Navigating Cutting-Edge Data Analysis in the Era of Precision Medicine"

Yan Guo, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Public Health and Sciences
Director of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Shared Resource
Chief of Bioinformatics Research Innovation
University of Miami (Florida) - Miller School of Medicine 

October 13 | Bioinformatics

"Quantifying the Clusterness and Trajectoriness of Single-Cell RNA-seq Data"

Peng Qiu, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University

September 29 | Bioinformatics

"Unveiling Collective Intelligence: Navigating Representative Learning for Federated Insights" 

Keren Li, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Mathematics 
College of Arts and Sciences
University of Alabama at Birmingham

September 8 | Bioinformatics

"Application of Deep-Learning Algorithms in Bioinformatics Methods"

Ramana V. Davuluri, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Biomedical Informatics
Graduate Program Director, Biomedical Informatics
Director, Bioinformatics Shared Resource, Stony Brook Cancer Center
Affiliate Facility, Institute for AI-Driven Discovery and Innovation
Stony Brook Medicine, State University of New York at Stony Brook

March 31 | Bioinformatics

"Proteogenomics Presents New Avenues for Tumor Systems Biology"

Chen Huang, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Genetics
Scientist, Precision Medicine Institute and O'Neal Comprehensive Cancer
UAB Heersink School of Medicine

March 24 | Bioinformatics

January 13 | Bioinformatics

“Reverse-Engineering Regulatory Mechanisms from scRNA-seq and scATAC-seq”

Emily Miraldi, Ph.D. 
Assistant Professor, University of Cincinnati, Department of Pediatrics
Divisions of Immunobiology and Biomedical Informatics
Cincinnati Children’s Hospital

Friday, December 9 | Bioinformatics

"DEPOT: Graph Artificial Intelligence to Reveal Health Trajectories of Chronic Kidney Disease for Precision Medicine”

Jing Su, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor and Director of Data Management Services
Department of Biostatistics and Health Data Science
Associate Director of Real-world Data, Biostatistics & Data Management Core
Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center
Indiana University School of Medicine

Friday, November 11 | Bioinformatics

"Multiscale Modeling of Biomolecular Networks"

Yu "Brandon" Xia
Professor, Department of Bioengineering
Canada Research Chair in Computational and Systems Biology, McGill University

Friday, October 28 | Bioinformatics

"Virus Surveillance: Tools to Classify the Unknown"

Elliott J. Lefkowitz, Ph.D. 

Professor, Department of Microbiology
Co-Director, Undergraduate Bioinformatics Program
Director of Bioinformatics, Center for Clinical and Translational Science
Director, Bioinformatics Core, Microbiome Facility
UAB Heersink School of Medicine

Friday, October 14 | Bioinformatics

"Harnessing Bulk and Single Cell Omics Data for the Discovery of Biomarkers in Cancer"

Chindo Hicks, Ph.D.
Director, Bioinformatics and Genomics Program
Professor, Department of Genetics
LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans School of Medicine 

Friday, September 30 | Bioinformatics

"An Integrated Approach to Ovarian Cancer Diagnostics and Therapeutics"

John F. McDonald, Ph.D.

Director, Integrated Cancer Research Center
Professor, School of Biological Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology
Chief Scientific Officer, Ovarian Cancer Institute

Friday, September 9 | Bioinformatics

"Using AI-Algorithms to Advance Drug Discovery for Neglected Parasitic Diseases"

Rahul Singh, Ph.D
Professor, Department of Computer Science
San Francisco State University

“#DataMatters - Leveraging Big Data for Cancer Discovery and Impact”

Jill S. Barnholtz-Sloan, Ph.D
Associate Director for Informatics and Data Science (IDS)
Center for Biomedical Informatics and Information Technology (CBIIT)
Senior Investigator, Trans-Divisional Research Program (TDRP)
Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics (DCEG)
National Cancer Institute (NCI)

Friday, April 8 | Bioinformatics

“Predicting Isoform Functions via Deep Learning and Refinement of Interaction Networks”

Tao Jiang, PhD
Distinguished Professor
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
University of California, Riverside

Friday, March 25 | Bioinformatics

“Data-driven Informatics Research for Precision Oncology”

Qianqian Song, PhD,
Assistant Professor of Cancer Biology
Wake Forest School of Medicine

Friday, February 25 | Bioinformatics

“Machine Learning Finds New Insights in Cardiac Regeneration”

Thanh Nguyen, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow, Dept. of Biomedical Engineering and Informatics Institute
UAB Heersink School of Medicine

Friday, February 11 | Bioinformatics

“Functional Genomics Downstream Analysis and Common Informatics Tools”

Zongliang Yue, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow, Informatics Institute
UAB Heersink School of Medicine

Friday, January 28 | Bioinformatics

“Genome-Guided Rare Disease Diagnosis and Drug Targeting Strategies”

Brittany N. Lasseigne, PhD
Assistant Professor, Department of Cell, Developmental and Integrative Biology
Associate Scientist, O'Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center
Scientist, Hugh Kaul Precision Medicine Institute
Scientist, Informatics Institute

Friday, November 12 | Bioinformatics

“Translating Big Data to Effective Cancer Therapy”

Aik Choon Tan, PhD
Vice Chair, Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics
Moffitt Cancer Center

Friday, November 5 | Bioinformatics

“Facilitating Collaborative Research: Data Harmonization and Pooling”

Eneida A. Mendonca, MD, PhD, FAAP, FACMI

Friday, October 22 | BioInformatics

“Data Science Sherpas: UAB Research and the Journey to the Computer”

Blake Joyce, PhD
Data Science Manager
UAB Research Computing

Friday, October 8 | Bioinformatics

“From Collecting Multi-Omic Data to Inferring Meaning”

Ewy A. Mathé, PhD
Director of Informatics, Division of Preclinical Innovation
DPI Cores
National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS)
National Institute of Health

Friday, September 24 | Bioinformatics

“Harnessing Public Genomics Big Data to Gain Functional Insights on Complex Diseases”

Zhaohui "Steve" Qin, PhD, MS
Professor, Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics
Rollins School of Public Health
Emory University

Friday, September 10 | Bioinformatics

“Identifying Viruses, their Integration sites, and Regulatory Factors in Host Genomes”"

Zhongming Zhao, PhD, MS.
Chair Professor and Director, Center for Precision Health
School of Biomedical Informatics
University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston

Friday, August 27 | Bioinformatics

"Using the Wisdom of Crowds to Address Computational Grand Challenges in Biomedicine"

Gustavo Stolovitzky, Ph.D.
Program Director, Translational Systems Biology and Nanobiotechnology
Thomas J. Watson Research Center
DREAM Challenges Founding Chair Emeritus and Director
IBM Exploratory Life Sciences Council Chair

Friday, April 30 | Bioinformatics

“Computational Pathology and Integrative Genomics for Cancer Research”
Kun Huang, Ph.D., FAIMBE
Professor and Vice-Chair for Data Science, Department of Biostatistics and Health Data Science
Precision Health Initiative Chair for Genomic Data Science
Director of Data Science and Informatics, Precision Health Initiative
Assistant Dean for Data Science
Associate Director of Data Science, Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center
Indiana University School of Medicine
Senior Investigator, Regenstrief Institute

Friday, April 9

“Beyond BERT: Learning Representations for Clinical NLP”
Timothy Miller, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Computational Health Informatics Program (CHIP)
Harvard Medical School

Friday, March 26

“The Collaboration Structures of Critical Care Teams and Patient Outcomes: A Retrospective Network Analysis”
You Chen, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Biomedical Informatics
Vanderbilt University Medical Center
OHPEN Laboratory

Friday, March 12

“Brain Imaging Genetics: Integrated Analysis and Machine Learning”
Li Shen, Ph.D., FAIMBE
Professor of Informatics
University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine
Shen Lab

Friday, February 26

“Adapting Natural Language Processing Models Across Clinical Domains”
Steven Bethard, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
School of Information
University of Arizona

Friday, February 12

"Multi-omic Analysis of Health and Disease Across Thousands of People"Nathan Price, Ph.D.
Co-CEO, Onegevity Health
Professor, Institute for Systems Biology
Co-Director, Hood-Price Integrated Laboratory for Systems Biomedicine

Friday, January 22 

"An Evidence-based Network Approach to Recommending Targeted Cancer Therapies"
Simina Boca, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Oncology and Department of Biostatistics, Bioinformatics and Biomathematics
Georgetown University Medical Center

December 11, 2020

"Meta-Learning for Cancer Prediction and Survival Analysis"
Aidong Zhang, Ph.D.
Professor
Computer Science and Biomedical Engineering
University of Virginia

November 13, 2020

"Application of Single-Cell Data Analysis in Autoimmune Disease"
Min Gao, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Medicine - Cardiovascular Disease
Associate Scientist
Informatics Institute

October 30, 2020

"Lessons from COVID-19: How Are Data Science and AI Changing Future Biomedical Research?"
Jake Chen, Ph.D.
Professor of Genetics and Computer Science
Associate Director of Informatics Institute
Chief Bioinformatics Officer
UAB Heersink School of Medicine

October 23, 2020

"Getting to the Edge of Biological Networks"
Shahid M. Mukhtar, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Departments of Biology and Surgery
Scientist
Nutrition Obesity Research Center
UAB Heersink School of Medicine

October 9, 2020

"Genomic Tools for Third-Generation Sequencing Data Analysis"
Zechen Chong, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Genetics and Scientist
Informatics Institute
UAB Heersink School of Medicine

September 25, 2020

"Community-Relative Distance with Applications to Bioinformatics"
Ryan Melvin, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Surgery
Department of Anesthesiology
UAB Heersink School of Medicine

September 11, 2020

"Understanding the Impact of Social Determinants of Health on the COVID-19 Pandemic"
Ramaraju Rudraraju, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Surgery
Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery
UAB Heersink School of Medicine

May 8, 2020

“From ‘Big Data’ to ‘Little Data’ — From Information Disarray to Action”
William M. Tierney, M.D.
Professor, Department of Population Health
Chair, Department of Population Health
Dell Medical School
The University of Texas at Austin

April 24, 2020

“De-identification of UAB Clinical Text using Transfer Learning”
John D. Osborne, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
UAB Heersink School of Medicine
Informatics Institute

April 10, 2020

“Bioinformatics for B-Cell Receptor Repertoire Sequencing Studies”
Alexander Rosenberg, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Microbiology
Scientist
Informatics Institute
UAB Heersink School of Medicine

March 27, 2020

"Mining and Prediction of Gene Functions for Systematic Study of the Genotype-Phenotype Map"
Nilesh Kumar
Ph.D. Student
UAB Department of Biology

"The Systeomics of Arsenical Injury"
Bharat Mishra 
Ph.D. Student
UAB Department of Biology

March 6, 2020

Topic: “The Coronavirus (COVID-19) Outbreak and Data-driven Healthcare: An Informatics Perspective”
Speaker: Jake Chen, Ph.D.
Affiliation: Professor, Department of Genetics, Chief Bioinformatics Officer, Associate Director
Informatics Institute, UAB Heersink School of Medicine

February 14, 2020

Topic: "Deep Learning-driven Distance-based Ab Initio Protein Structure Prediction"
Speaker: Jianlin Cheng, Ph.D.
Affiliation: William and Nancy Thompson Professor in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Missouri

January 24, 2020

Topic: "Omics Approaches for Insight to Skeletal Muscle Wasting and Weight Loss in COPD"
Speaker: Merry-Lynn McDonald, Ph.D.
Affiliation: Director of Integrative ‘Omics and Assistant Professor, UAB Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Medicine

January 10, 2020

Topic: "Genomics, Machine Learning, and Osteoporosis Risk Assessment"
Speaker: Qing Wu, ScD, MSPH, MS, MB
Affiliation: Associate Professor of Biostatistics, Department of Environmental & Occupational Health, School of Public Health and Nevada Institute of Personalized Medicine, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

December 13, 2019

Topic: "Research Computing: Building Gateways To Science"
Speaker: Ralph Zottola, Ph.D.
Affiliation: Assistant Vice-President for Researching Computing, Chief Architect for UAB Research Computing Applications

November 22, 2019

Topic: "Polygenic Risk Scores: Are They GPS for Clinical Practice?"
Speaker: Hemant Tiwari, Ph.D. 
Affiliation: William “Student” Sealy Gosset Endowed Professor, Department of Biostatistics, Section on Statistical Genetics, UAB School of Public Health

October 25, 2019

Topic: "AI-Informatics in Biomedicine: Find the Balance in Marriage"
Speaker: Thanh Nguyen, Ph.D.
Affiliation: Postdoctoral Fellow, UAB Heersink School of Medicine

October 11, 2019

Topic: "Control-Alter-Delete: Gene Regulatory Mechanisms in Brain Function and Disease"
Speaker: Jeremy Day Ph.D.
Affiliation: Associate Professor, Department of Neurobiology, UAB Heersink School of Medicine

September 13, 2019

Topic: "Bioinformatics for Single-cell Analysis: A Review of Computational Biology Trends and Application Opportunities"
Speaker: Jake Chen, Ph.D.
Affiliation: Professor, UAB Heersink School of Medicine, Department of Genetics and Computer Science, Associate Director of Informatics Institute, Chief Bioinformatics Officer

May 24, 2019

Topic: "Predicting genetic effect of missense variants using deep learning"
Speaker: Yufeng Shen, Ph.D.
Affiliation: Assistant Professor, Department of Systems Biology, Department of Biomedical Informatics, Columbia University

May 10, 2019

Topic: "A New Mathematical Framework for Convergence Computations"
Speaker: Murat Tanik, Ph.D.
Affiliation: Professor and Chair, UAB Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Wallace R. Bunn Chair of Telecommunications

April 26, 2019

Topic: "Whole-exome sequencing approach to select genes related to left ventricular hypertrophy in African Americans." 
Speaker: Ryan Irvin, Ph.D.
Affiliation: Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, UAB

March 22, 2019

Topic: "Privacy-preserving Techniques for Sharing and Analyzing Human Genomic Data"
Speaker: Casey Greene, Ph.D.
Affiliation: Assistant Professor, Department of Pharmacology, University of Pennsylvania

February 8, 2019

Topic: "Strategies to Study Rare Diseases with 'Big Data'"
Speaker: Haixu Tang, Ph.D.
Affiliation: Director, Data Science Academic Programs, Professor of Informatics and Computing, Indiana University Bloomington

January 25, 2019

Topic: "Biological discoveries through bioinformatics analysis and research"
Speaker: Sheng Liu, Ph.D.
Affiliation: Junior Faculty, Indiana University Department of Medical & Molecular Genetics

January 11, 2019

Topic: "L-2-Hydroxyglutarate in Renal Cancer: Epigenetic Mechanisms and Liabilities"
Speaker: Sunil Sudarshan, M.D.
Affiliation: Associate Professor, UAB Department of Urology

December 14, 2018

Topic:  "The UAB Undiagnosed Diseases Program: Bioinformatic Applications in Rare Disorders" 
Speaker:  Bruce Korf, M.D., Ph.D.
Affiliation: Wayne H. and Sara Crews Finley Chair in Medical Genetics, Chief Genomics Officer, UAB Medicine, Co-Director, UAB-HudsonAlpha Center for Genomic Medicine, Associate Director for Rare Diseases, Hugh Kaul Personalized Medicine Institute

November 16, 2018

Topic: “From linear organization to the 3D genome architecture” 
Speaker: Yichao Li, Ph.D.
Affiliation: Research Assistant, Ohio University School of Engineering and Computer Science

October 26, 2018

Topic: "Exploring the -Omics of Glioblastoma Using Patient-Derived Models of Cancer"
Speaker: Christopher Willey, M.D., Ph.D.
Affiliation: Director, UAB Kinome Core, Associate Professor, UAB Radiation Oncology

October 12, 2018

Topic: "Unraveling the meiotic recombination landscape in individual human genomes"
Speaker: Peng Xu, Ph.D.
Affiliation: Postdotoral Fellow, UAB Informatics Institute

September 28, 2018

Topic: "From chaos, DRAMA: Data-driven Research for Advanced Modeling and Analysis"
Speaker: Jeremy Blackburn, Ph.D.
Affiliation: Assistant Professor, UAB Department of Computer Science

September 14, 2018

Topic: “Computational prediction and modeling for protein-drug and protein-protein interactions”
Speaker: Daisuke Kihara, Ph.D.
Affiliation: Professor, Department of Biological Sciences and Department of Computer Sciences, Purdue University

August 24, 2018

Topic: "Deep Learning and Clustering Algorithms for Protein Scoring"
Speaker: Debswapna Bhattacharya, PhD
Affiliation: Assistant Professor, Auburn University

August 10, 2018

Topic: "Context fear memory formation is regulated by hippocampal lncRNA-mediated histone methylation changes"
Speaker: Anderson Butler 
Affiliation: Ph.D. candidate in GBS Cell, Molecular & Developmental Biology Program and Graduate student in Lubin Lab

July 27, 2018

Topic: "HLA Population Genetics and Informatics to Optimize the Kidney Allocation System"
Speaker: Loren Gragert, Ph.D.
Affiliation: Assistant Professor, Tulane University

July 22, 2018

Topic: "Predicting regulatory variants with large-scale multi-omics data"
Speaker: Li Chen, Ph.D.
Affiliation: Assistant Professor, Auburn University

July 13, 2018

Topic: "Implementation of Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) Testing in Precision Oncology Advantages and Challenges"
Speaker: Shuko Harada, MD
Affiliation: Associate Professor, UAB Pathology

May 25, 2018

Topic: "Towards the ultimate diagnostics: NGS of immune repertoire"
Speaker: Jian Han, MD, PhD
Affiliation: Faculty Investigator, HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology

May 11, 2018

Topic: "Comparative and evolutionary genomics of allelic imbalance in mammals"
Speaker: Xu Wang, Ph.D.
Affiliation: Assistant Professor, Auburn University

April 27, 2018

Topic: "Integrating high-throughput drug screening with targeted deep sequencing reveals novel treatment strategies for chemoresistant acute myeloid leukemia"
Speaker: Miranda Burnette, Ph.D.
Affiliation: T32 Fellow, UAB Department of Microbiology

March 23, 2018

Topic: "An Introduction to Applied Longitudinal Data Analysis"
Speaker: Lloyd J. Edwards, PhD
Affiliation: Professor and Chair, Deparment of Biostatistics School of Public Health

Abstract: Longitudinal studies, in which outcomes are measured repeatedly over time on the same subject, are widely conducted in various applications and often provide better insights about the processes of interest than cross-sectional studies. Longitudinal studies allow addressing questions about changes over time in the response and changes in the relationship of the response to subjects' characteristics. We present an introduction to applied longitudinal data analysis that is meant to introduce features of longitudinal data and available statistical techniques for analyzing the data.

March 9, 2018

Topic: "Roles of Alternative Splicing in Complex Diseases"
Speaker: Yunlong Liu, Ph.D.
Affiliation: Professor, Indiana University School of Medicine

February 23, 2018

Topic: Integrating multidimensional data to catalyze translation of GWAs finds to biology and therapeutics
Speaker: Bingshan Li,PhD    
Affiliation: Associate Professor, Vanderbilt University

Bio: Dr. Bingshan Li is Associate Professor at Vanderbilt Genetics Institute. Dr. Li’s research is focused on developing statistical methods and computational tools to understand genetics of human complex traits. Dr. Li is a pioneer in the development of gene-based collapsing methods for analyzing rare variants (almost 10 years ago), which laid a foundation for sequencing data analysis for complex traits. As a result, he received the C.W. Cotterman Award by the American Society of Human Genetics in 2009. He is now focused on developing methods for analyzing noncoding rare variants in whole genome sequencing (WGS) data. Dr. Li is a PI of one of the three Analysis Centers for the Genome Sequencing Program, which is to carry out whole genome sequencing over >100,000 samples across multiple complex diseases. 

Abstract: Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified numerous variants associated with schizophrenia (SCZ). Translating GWAS findings to biological mechanisms, especially clinical applicability, however, remains a major challenge. In this talk, I will introduce a statistical framework that integrates multiple -omics data to identify SCZ risk genes based on GWAS findings. The risk genes identified are highly consistent with the leading pathophysiological hypotheses of SCZ, specifically expressed in brain tissues, and enriched in de novo mutations in a broader range of psychiatric disorders (e.g. autism, developmental diseases and intellectual disability). Furthermore, the risk genes are enriched in drug targets, providing candidate genes for therapeutic development. We further investigated the expression patterns of risk genes across multiple tissue- and cell type-specific transcriptomic data, and used machine learning approaches to build models to predict risk genes across the genome

February 9, 2018

Topic: Genomic disgnosis of developmental diabilities   
Speaker: Greg Cooper, PhD 
Affiliation: Faculty Investigator, HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology

January 26, 2018

Topic: Impact of rare variants on eft ventrivular traits in African American using WGS 
Speaker: Rafet Al-Tobasei, PhD
Affiliation: T32 Fellow, UAB Department of Biostatistics

January 12, 2018

Topic: Intergrative Anlaysis of Cancer Progression
Speaker: Sooryanarayana Varambally, PhD
Affiliation: Associate Professor, UAB Department of Pathology

March 7 | Clinical Informatics 

"Leveraging Artificial Intelligence and Clinical Informatics to Improve Patient Safety in Acute Care Pediatrics"

L. Nelson Sanchez-Pinto, M.D., MBI, FAMIA
Director of Academic Development, Division of Critical Care
Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago
Associate Professor, Pediatrics (Critical Care) and Preventive Medicine (Biostatistics and Informatics)
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

Feb. 21 | Clinical Informatics 

"Reinventing the EHR in the Post-AI Era"

James Cimino, M.D.
Distinguished Professor and Chair
Department of Biomedical Informatics and Data Science
Co-Director, Center for Clinical and Translational Science
Heersink School of Medicine
University of Alabama at Birmingham

Feb. 7 | Clinical Informatics

"A Novel Privacy-preserving Approach to Enable Remote Data Access and Analytics at Federally Qualified Health Centers: STOP-HCC-HCV Program in South Texas"

Catherine Craven, Ph.D.
Biomedical Informatician
University of Missouri-Columbia and University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio

November 15 | Clinical Informatics

"AI Governance for Clinical Informatics: Navigating Ethical, Regulatory, and Operational Challenges"

Anil Jain, M.D.
Chief Innovation Officer, Provider Digital Transformation
Innovaccer

Jain, chief innovation officer at Innocaccer, presents "AI Governance for Clinical Informatics: Navigating Ethical, Regulatory, and Operational Challenges."

October 25 | Clinical Informatics 

Trends and Opportunities in Patient Portal Disparities

Robert Turer, M.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Emergency Medicine
Program Director, Clinical Informatics Fellowship
Deputy Chief Medical Informatics Officer (DCMIO) for Analytics
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center

Turer discussed trends and opportunities related to patient portal disparities, with a particular focus on his work among Spanish speakers in North Texas and nationally in emergency departments.

October 11 | Clinical Informatics 

"Generation and Application of Synthetic Data for Improved Clinical Text De-identification and Large Language Model Enhanced Disease Entity Linking"

John Osborne, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Biomedical Informatics and Data Science
University of Alabama at Birmingham

This presentation covered templated and LLM-generated data to protect patient privacy in de-identified clinical text and enhance information extraction. It focused on surrogate strategies for Personal Health Information (PHI) and their effects on Natural Language Processing (NLP) tasks, as well as fine-tuning a Llama model for Disease Entity Recognition and Normalization.

October 4 | Clinical Informatics

"Accelerate Clinical Trails with AI: A $200 Billion Opportunity for Computer Scientists"

Jimeng Sun, Ph.D.
Health Innovation Professor, Carle Illinois College of Medicine
Professor of Computer Science, University of Illinois-Urbana

Clinical trials are essential for advancing medical knowledge and developing new treatments, but they often face significant challenges in efficiency and cost-effectiveness. This discussion examines seven key AI applications that can dramatically improve trial speed, accuracy, and outcomes: protocol design optimization, automated systematic review of existing literature, patient-trial matching, enhanced trial data analysis, predictive modeling of trial outcomes, feasibility analysis, and data-driven site selection.

September 20 | Clinical Informatics 

“The Human Factors of AI in Healthcare: Where Are We Now, and Where are We Going?” 

Andre Kushniruk, Ph.D.
Director and Professor, School of Health Information Science
University of Victoria (British Columbia, Canada) 

Dr. Kushniruk's presentation examines some of the challenges and opportunities for AI in healthcare, taking a human factors perspective. AI has the potential to greatly improve healthcare, and much has been said about its benefits for healthcare related to patient outcomes, surveillance, safety, and improved decision-making.

This discussion explored human factors approaches for considering type of AI applications concerning modes of user-computer interaction and user needs. It will be shown that there is a need for new methods for analyzing AI-human interaction, including extending classic HCI laboratory-based studies to new types of studies involving simulations and naturalistic testing and evaluation.

September 13 | Clinical Informatics

"The National Childhood Cancer Registry (NCCR): Linking Central Cancer Registries, Electronic Health Records and Other Data Sources for Cancer Surveillance and Research”

Austin Fitts, Pharm.D., Surveillance Research Program and Postdoctoral Fellow at the National Cancer Institute
Nikki M. Wood, Pharm.D., Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City
Wayne H. Liang, M.D., M.S., Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Emory University
David H. Noyd, M.D., M.P.H., Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Washington
Elaine M. Fan, M.D., M.S., Clinical Assistant Professor of the University of Kansas-Wichita

Childhood cancers are rare diseases and a leading cause of mortality in children. The effective reuse of cancer-related real-world data can accelerate the pace of research discovery. This discussion describes the development of the National Childhood Cancer Registry (NCCR), a component of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Childhood Cancer Data Initiative (CCDI) data ecosystem that integrates and harmonizes heterogeneous data from multiple sources, including central cancer registries and electronic health records, to augment cancer surveillance and research.

September 6 | Clinical Informatics

"A Generative AI Platform: A Safe, Ethical and Policy-Compliant Resource to Enhance Research"

Ryan Melvin, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine
University of Alabama at Birmingham

Melvin’s discussion focused on ways to simplify clinical, research, and regulatory text, along with establishing ways to have more secure conversations with ChatGPT.

April 19 | Clinical Informatics 

"Leveraging Technology, People, and Processes to Improve Lung Cancer Screening"

Daniel Andrew Carnegie, M.D., MBA, MPH
Co-Chief Resident, Preventive Medicine Residency Program
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Kimberly Shoenbill, M.D., Ph.D.
Director, UNC Tobacco Treatment and Weight Management Programs
Director, UNC Clinical Informatics Fellowship Program
Assistant Professor of Family Medicine
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill School of Medicine

This presentation described the use of informatics tools and workflows to address the urgent need for lung cancer screening in at-risk communities. This seminar describes how informatics methods are employed with a purposeful focus on data, technology, and alignment of resources with healthcare professionals and patient needs to improve lung cancer screening and patient outcomes.

April 5 | Clinical Informatics

"Skyline Vision: The Silver Lining in Scaling Healthcare AI Without Breaking the Bank"

Umberto Tachinardi, M.D.
Senior Vice President and Chief Digital Health Officer, UC Health
Interim Chair and Professor, Department of Biomedical Informatics
University of Cincinnati College of Medicine

February 16 | Clinical Informatics

"Neuroanatomy-Anchored Infromation Management Platform (NIMP) for Collaborative BICAN Data Generation"

GQ Zhang, MS, Ph.D.

Professor and Distinguished Chair in Digital Innovation
Vice-President and Chief Data Scientist, Office of Data Science (ODS)
Co-Director, Texas Institute for Restorative Neurotechnologies (TIRN)
The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston

Dr. Zhang's discussion presented the rationale, strategic design and novel approaches employed for advancing NIH BRAIN Initiative's BICAN brain cell atlas program. NIMP consists of two portals for BICAN collaborative data generation: the Specimen Portal and the Sequence Library (SeqLib) Portal. The Specimen Portal focuses on tissue management from donors to brain slabs and annotated brain samples. The SeqLib Portal manages the workflow starting from tissue, all the way downstream to track data deposition to assay-dependent, data-modality-specific archives. Both portals work in tandem to generate multi-model genomic data that can be traced back to their anatomical origins using the Allen Brain Atlas.

The portals provide multiple types of data interfaces through dashboards, APIs, faceted query, and batch data ingestion and exporting. All of the underling functionalities are achieved through a robust agile development strategy using our NHash resource identifiers, metadata standardization, active combinatorial dashboarding, resource provenance linkage and rendering (e.g. via Sankey diagrams), and dedicated interfaces with NIH NeuroBiobank, sequencing centers, NeMO and BIL archives, and the larger BICAN data ecosystem.

January 26 | Clinical Informatics

"Towards Quintuple Aim in Primary Care: Role of Informatics and AI"

Tapan Mehta, Ph.D.

Professor and Vice Chair for Research
Department of Family and Community Medicine
UAB Heersink School of Medicine

December 1 | Clinical Informatics

"AI for Healthcare: How Can Large Language Models Help Physicians at the Bedside?"

Yanjun Gao, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Biostatistics
Medical College of Wisconsin 

November 17 | Clinical Informatics

"OHDSI's Odyssey: How Does an Open Source/Open Science Community Get to Grow and Make an Impact?"

Christian Reich, MD, Ph.D.
Professor of the Practice
OHDSI Center at the Roux Institute
Northeastern University
CEO, Odysseus Data Services

November 3 | Clinical Informatics

"Augmenting Postoperative Handoffs"

Joanna Abraham, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Anethesiology and Medicine, Section of Clinical and Translational Research
Roy and Diana Vagelos Division of Biology & Biomedical Sciences (DBBS) Institute for Informatics
Institute of Clinical and Translational Sciences
Washington University School of Medicine

October 6 | Clinical Informatics

"Can ChatGPT Be Used to Answer Clinical Questions for Patients?"

Donghua Tao, Ph.D., MA, MS. FAMIA
Associate University Librarian for the Health Sciences and Associate Dean
University of Illinois at Chicago 

April 14 | Clinical Informatics

"A Hospital and Google Partnership to Implement a COVID-19 Inpatient Video Monitoring Program" 

Ksenia Gorbenko, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Institute for Health Care Delivery Science
Department of Population Health Science and Policy 
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

April 7 | Clinical Informatics 

"Implementing a Machine Learning Screening Tool for Malnutrition: Insights from Qualtitaive Research Applicable to Other ML-Based CDSS"

Melanie Besculides, DrPh, MPH
Assistant Professor, Institute for Health Care Delivery Science
Department of Population Health Science & Policy
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

March 3 | Clinical Informatics

"Expanding Clinical Informatics Literacy and Workforce Capacity through Provider Builder Programs"

Wayne H. Liang, M.D., M.S
Director of Informatics Education and Outreach at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta
Pediatric Hematologist/Oncologist, Aflac Cancer & Blood Disorders Center
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Emory University School of Medicine

February 17 | Clinical Informatics 

"From Lab to Bedside: A Team Science Approach for Translational Natural Language Processing for Clinical Decision Support" 

Majid Afshar, M.D., MSCAR
Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine 
Division of Allergy, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine and Department of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics
Co-Director, Critical Care Medicine Data Science Lab
University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health
Physician Informaticist and Pulmonary and Critical Care Physician, UW Health

February 3 | Clinical Informatics 

"Challenges, Opportunities, and Best Practices for Clinical Decision Support (CDS) Governance and Implementation"

Richard Schreiber, M.D.
Associate Chief Medical Informatics Officer, Penn State Health Holy Spirit Medical Center
Associate, Department of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Professor of Medicine, Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine

January 20 | Clinical Informatics 

"Taming a Wolf in Sheep's Clothing: Informatics Infrastructure for Detecting and Monitoring Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Using Electronic Health Record Data"

Theresa L. Walunas, Ph.D., FAMIA
Assistant Professor of Medicine
Division of General Internal Medicine
Associate Director, Center for Health Information Partnerships
Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine

Friday, Dec 2 | Clinical Informatics

"OneFlorida+ Informatics Infrastructure and Tools to Accelerate Clinical Research"

William R. Hogan, MD, MS
Professor, Health Outcomes and Biomedical Informatics
Director of Biomedical Informatics, Clinical and Translational Sciene Institute, University of Florida
Director of Informatics, OneFlorida Clinical Research Consortium

Friday, Nov 18 | Clinical Informatics

"Biomedical Informatics: Year in Review"

Jim Cimino, MD, FACMI, FACP
Distinguished Professor of Medicine
Department of Medicine, Division of General Internal Medicine
UAB Heersink School of Medicine
Director, UAB Informatics Institute
Co-director, Center for Clinical and Translational Science

Friday, Oct 21 | Clinical Informatics

"Toward Designing Context-Aware Electronic Health Records with a Patient-Specific Knowledge Base"

Tiago Colicchio, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Medicine
Division of General Internal Medicine and Informatics Institute

Thursday, Oct 13 | Clinical Informatics

"Unbiased Representation of Clinical Data for Precise Patient Outcome Prediction"

Jin Chen, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Division of Biomedical Informatics
Department of Internal Medicine
Department of Computer Science
University of Kentucky

Friday, Oct 7 | Clinical Informatics

"Data Mapping Patient Reported Outcomes to Support Remote Patient Monitoring"

Jeffrey R. Curtis, MD, MS, MPH
Harbart Ball Professor of Medicine, Epidemiology & Computer Science
Division of Clinical Immunology & Rheumatology

Alfredo Guzman, MSHI
Research Informatics Serivce Center (RISC) 

Friday, Sep 16 | Clinical Informatics

"Applications of Human Factor Engineering for Better Clinical Decision Support (CDS)"

Swaminathan Kandaswamy, Ph.D 

Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
Emory University, School of Medicine

Friday, Sept 2 | Clinical Informatics

“Translational Artificial Intelligence (AI): The Need to Translate from Basic Science to Clinical Value”

William Hersh, MD, FAMCI, FAMIA, FIAHSI, FACP
Professor and Chair, Department of Medical Informatics and Clinical Epidemiology (DMICE)
Oregon Health and Science University

Friday, April 1 | Clinical Informatics

“Current Practices and Frontiers in Rule-Based Electronic Phenotyping”

Fabrício Kury, MD
Clinical Data Strategist

Friday, March 11 | Clinical Informatics

“Development of Computable Pediatric Chemotherapy Regimen Knowledge for Cancer Clinical Care and Research”

Wayne H. Liang, MD, MS
Pediatric Hematologist/Oncologist and Physician Informaticist, Aflac Cancer & Blood Disorders Center
Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Emory University School of Medicine

Friday, March 4 | Clinical Informatics

“Public and Population Health Informatics Challenges in addressing Health Disparities”

Raymonde Uy, MD, MBA
Physician Informaticist

Friday, February 4 | Clinical Informatics

“Data Is Transforming the Scientific Method”

Nicholas P. Tatonetti, PhD, FACMI
Associate Professor of Biomedical Informatics
Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons
Columbia University

Friday, January 21 | Clinical Informatics

“Multi-omic Translational Approaches to Investigate Therapeutic Resistance in Glioblastoma”

Christopher D. Willey, MD, PhD
Director UAB Kinome Core
Professor of Radiation Oncology
UAB Heersink School of Medicine

Friday, January 14 | Clinical Informatics

“How to Teach a Computer to Learn about Microbes”

Marcin P. Joachimiak, PhD
Computational Biologist, Environmental Genomics and Systems Biology
Division, Biosystems Data Science Department
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Friday, November 19

“Translating Big Data to Effective Cancer Therapy”

Jim Cimino, MD, FACMI, FACP
Distinguished Professor of Medicine
Department of Medicine, Division of General Internal Medicine
Director, UAB Informatics Institute
Co-director, Center for Clinical & Translational Science

Friday, October 15

“Effective Use of EHR Data to Support Research: The Complementary Roles of Data Extraction and Data Transformation”

James Willig, M.D., MSPH
Associate Professor
UAB School of Medicine,Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases
Associate Dean of Clinical Education
Director, Research and Informatics Services Center, Center for AIDS Research

Matthew Wyatt, MSHI
Director of Clinical Research Informatics
Informatics Institute
UAB Heersink School of Medicine

Friday, October 1 

“Translating Informatics Research into Practice ”"

Daniel Fabbri, PhD, FAMIA.
Assistant Professor of Biomedical Informatics and Computer Science
Vanderbilt University School of Medicinee

Friday, September 17 

“Incorporation of AHA Annual Survey Data into the UAB SHP Health Services Research Data Warehouse”"

Nichole Samuy, M.D.
Associate Professor of Pediatrics
Department of Pediatrics
Division of Pediatric Hospital Medicine
UAB Heersink School of Medicine

Friday, September 3

"An Integrated Optimization and Machine Learning Model to Predict Admission Status in Emergency Department Patients"

Abdulaziz Ahmed, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Health Services Administration
UAB School of Health Professions
Associate Professor of Preventive Medicine

Friday, April 16

“A Multidimensional Precision Medicine Approach Identifies an Autism Subtype Characterized by Dyslipidemia”
Yuan Luo, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Preventive Medicine
Chief AI Officer, Northwestern University Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (NUCATS) and Institute of Augmented Intelligence in Medicine (IAIM)
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

Friday, March 5

“Building tools to support family centered care: the InfoSage experience"
Charles Safran, M.D., MS, FACMI
Professor of Medicine
Harvard Medical School

Friday, February 5

“Update on UAB Autopsy Synoptic Reporting and Development of a COVID-19 Autopsy Virtual Biorepository”
Paul Benson, M.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Pathology
Division of Anatomic Pathology
UAB Heersink School of Medicine

Friday, January 29

"Leveraging Informatics to Create Learning Health Systems: Now, It’s Personal!"
Peter J. Embí, M.D., MS, FACP, FACMI, FAMIA
President & CEO
Regenstrief Institute
Leonard Betley Professor of Medicine and Associate Dean for Informatics & Health Services Research
Indiana University School of Medicine
Associate Director of Informatics
Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (CTSI)

Friday, January 15

"Public Health Informatics in the Time of COVID-19"
Nicholas Soulakis, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Preventive Medicine (Health and Biomedical Informatics, Epidemiology) and Medical Social Sciences
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Chief Public Health Informatics Advisor
Chicago Department of Public Health
Epidemiologist
Illinois Department of Public Health

December 18, 2020

"Facilitating collaborative research: data harmonization and pooling"
Eneida A. Mendonca, M.D., Ph.D., FAAP, FACMI
Vice President for Research Development
Interim Director
Center for Biomedical Informatics
Regenstrief Institute
Professor of Pediatrics and Biostatistics
Indiana University School of Medicine

December 04, 2020

“A Critical Analysis of COVID-19 Research Literature: Text Mining Approach”
Ferhat Zengul, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Health Services Administration
School of Health Professions 

Nurettin Oner, Ph.D., MHA
Research Associate
Health Services Administration
School of Health Professions

Bunyamin Ozaydin, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Health Services Administration
School of Health Professions

November 20, 2020

“Biomedical Informatics Year in Review”
James Cimino, M.D., FACMI, FACP
Professor
Department of Medicine
Division of General Internal Medicine
Director
Informatics Institute
UAB Heersink School of Medicine

November 6, 2020

“Are We Talking About the Same Patient? Studying Nurse-Physician Language Differences”
Andrew Boyd, M.D.
Associate Professor
Biomedical and Health Information Sciences
University of Illinois at Chicago

October 2, 2020

"The Peril and Promise of Clinical Informatics"
David M. Liebovitz, M.D.
Co-Director, Institute for Augmented Intelligence in Medicine - Center for Medical Education in Data Science and Digital Health
Associate Vice Chair for Clinical Informatics, Department of Medicine
Associate Professor of Medicine (General Internal Medicine and Geriatrics)
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

April 17, 2020

Topic: “The Role of Telehealth in Reducing Health Disparities”
Speaker: Mohanraj Thirumalai, Ph.D., MEng, MS
Affiliation: Assistant Professor, Health Services Administration, UAB School of Health Professions

February 21, 2020

Topic: "Diagnostic Decision Support Systems: An Educational Intervention to Increase Use"
Speaker: Eta Berner, Ed.D.
Affiliation: Professor, UAB School of Health Professions, Director of the UAB Center for Health Informatics for Patient Safety/Quality

January 31, 2020

Topic: "Re-Envisioning Informatics in Nursing Education for 2020 and Beyond"
Speaker: Marisa L. Wilson, DNSc, MHSc, RN, CPHIMS, RN-BC, FAAN
Affiliation: Associate Profesor of Nursing, Director, Nursing Academic Affairs, Coordinator, Informatics Specialty Track, Director, Health Systems Leadership Pathway, UAB School of Nursing

January 17, 2020

Topic: "The ‘F Word’ in FAIR – Finding Objects in the Scientific Record to Enable Research Synthesis and Inform Clinical Practice"
Speaker: Kathryn Kaiser, Ph.D.
Affiliation: Assistant Professor, Department of Health Behavior, UAB School of Public Health, Senior Scientist, Center for Outcomes and Effectiveness Research and Education (COERE), Scientist, Nutrition Obesity Research Center (NORC)

December 6, 2019

Topic: "Biomedical Informatics Year in Review"
Speaker: James Cimino, M.D.
Affiliation: Professor, Department of Medicine, Director, Informatics Institute, UAB Heersink School of Medicine

November 1, 2019

Topic: "A Design Science Approach to Community-Based Participatory Research: An Information System for Certified Peer Specialists in Opioid Use Disorder"
Speaker: Sue Feldman, RN, MEd, Ph.D.
Affiliation: Associate Professor and Director, Graduate Programs in Health Informatics, Health Services Administration, UAB School of Health Professions

October 18, 2019

Topic: "Using Industrial Engineering and Lean Techniques to Mitigate Burnout in Care Teams"
Speaker: Daniel Silva, Ph.D.
Affiliation: Assistant Professor, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, College of Engineering, Auburn University

October 4, 2019

Topic: "Transforming Cancer Clinical Research & Care Delivery through Clinical Informatics"
Speaker: Wayne Liang, M.D.
Affiliation: Assistant Professor, UAB Heersink School of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Division of Hematology/Oncology, Informatics Institute 

September 6, 2019

Topic: "Transitioning from one EHR to Another: Opportunities and Challenges"
Speaker: Amy Y. Wang, M.D., MBI
Affiliation: Associate Professor, UAB Heersink School of Medicine, Department of Medicine, Informatics Institute 

April 5, 2019

Topic: “Concepts, Relations, and Properties of a Clinical Ontology”
Speaker: Irushi Dissanayake
Affiliation: Postdoctoral Researcher, UAB Informatics Institute

March 15, 2019

Topic: "Toward Designing Smarter Electronic Clinical Documentation Systems"
Speaker: Tiago Colicchio, Ph.D.
Affiliation: Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, Informatics Institute, UAB

March 1, 2019

Topic: “Gamification, patient reported outcomes and patient based metrics”
Speaker: James, Willig, M.D., MSPH
Affiliation: Associate Professor, Division of Infectious Diseases, UAB Department of Medicine

February 15, 2019

Topic: "Population Genomics and Gene Expression Data Analysis"
Speaker: Linyong Mao, Ph.D.
Affiliation: Assistant Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Howard University

February 1, 2019

Topic: “Clinical Bioinformatics Methods to Study Genomic Mutational Profiles in Cancer Disease”
Speaker: Yvonne Edwards, Ph.D.
Affiliation: Director of Bioinformatics, Program in Molecular Medicine and Research, Assistant Professor, University of Massachusetts Medical School

January 18, 2019

Topic: "Actually See Your Patient, Not Just Inside Them: A New Technology and Paradigm for Medical Imaging Care"
Speaker: Srini Tridandapani, M.D., Ph.D., MBA
Affiliation: Vice Chair, Imaging Informatics, Professor, Department of Radiology- Cardiopulmonary Section 

January 4, 2019

Topic: “Incorporating CMS Medicare Cost Report data into Health Services Research Data Infrastructure”
Speaker: Bunyamin Ozaydin, Ph.D.
Affiliation:  Assistant Professor, UAB School of Health Professions

December 7, 2018

Topic: "Quality Improvement with CDW Mining, Graph-Network Analysis & Visualization: The INFECTALYTICS Project"
Speaker:  Allen Bryan, M.D., Ph.D.
Affiliation:  Assistant Professor, Department of Pathology, Division of Laboratory Medicine

November 30, 2018

Topic: "Investigating the Use of Patient Attributes to Predict False-Positive Medical Alerts" 
Speaker: Tim Kennell
Affiliation: M.D./Ph.D. Student, UAB, GBS

November 9, 2018

Topic: "Biomedical Informatics Year in Review"
Speaker: James J. Cimino, M.D.
Affiliation: Director, UAB Informatics Institute, Professor of Medicine

November 2, 2018

Topic: "Informatics in Precision Medicine: When Data Is the Drug"
Speaker: Matthew Might, Ph.D.
Affiliation: Director, UAB Hugh Kaul Precision Medicine Institute, Professor of Medicine

October 19, 2018

Topic: “Beyond Patient Portals: Informatics Support for Patient Engagement in the Inpatient Setting”
Speaker: Wayne Liang, M.D.
Affiliation: Assistant Professor, UAB Department of Pediatrics, Division of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology 

October 5, 2018

Topic: "Physician Performance and Preference for Clinical Data in Structured and Unstructured Formats."
Speaker: Eta Berner, Ed.D.
Affiliation: Professor, Director, Center for Health Informatics for Patient Safety/Quality UAB School of Health Professions

September 5, 2018

Topic:“Putting the “Why” in “EHR”: Toward the Development of an Ontology for  Representing Clinical Reasoning in Clinical Notes”
Speaker:  Jim Cimino, M.D., FACMI, FACP
Affiliation: Professor, Director-Informatics Institute, Co-Director-Center for Clinical and Translational Science