July 21, 2023

Deer spread COVID to humans multiple times, new research suggests

Americans have transmitted COVID-19 to wild deer hundreds of times, an analysis of thousands of samples collected from the animals suggests, and people have also caught and spread mutated variants from deer at least three times. The analysis published Monday stems from the first year of a multiyear federal effort to study the virus as it has spread into American wildlife, spearheaded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, or APHIS.  Read More……

Feb. 1, 2023

IDSI PhD student Will Baskett crunched EHR data, finding only a few long-haul symptoms directly related to COVID in comparison to generic viral infection

In a new study, a team of University of Missouri researchers made an unexpected discovery: people experiencing long-lasting effects from COVID-19 — known as “long COVID” or post-COVID conditions — are susceptible to developing only seven health symptoms for up to a year following the infection. They are: fast-beating heart, hair loss, fatigue, chest pain, shortness of breath, joint pain and obesity. Read More…

Feb. 1, 2023

Two IDSI Core Faculty Elected as Fellow of AAAS

Dr. Xiu-Feng “Henry” Wan and Dr. Xiaoqin Zou were named as Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Read More…

Nov. 14, 2022

MUIDSI Dissertation Defense: IDENTIFICATION OF IMMUNE-RELATED GENE SIGNATURES TO EVALUATE IMMUNOTHARAPEUTIC RESPONSE IN CANCER PATIENTS USING EXPLORATORY SUBGROUP DISCOVERY

Phenotypic and genotypic heterogeneity are characteristic features of cancer patients. To tackle patients’ heterogeneity, immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) represent one of the most promising therapeutic approaches. However, approximately 50% of cancer patients that are eligible for treatment with ICIs will not respond well, which motivates the exploration of immunotherapy in combination with either targeted treatments or chemotherapy. Over the years, multiple patient stratification techniques have been developed to identify homogenous patient subgroups, although, matching patient subgroup to treatment option that can improve patients’ health outcome remains a challenging task.  We extend our exploratory subgroup discovery algorithm to identify patient subpopulations…

Sep. 6, 2022

MUIDSI DISSERTATION DEFENSE: Explainable Artificial Intelligence To Stratify Pan-Cancer Patients For Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor Decision Making

Immune checkpoints are a normal part of the immune system. It engages when proteins on the surface of immune cells called T cells recognize and bind to partner proteins on other cells, such as some tumor cells. Immune based therapies such as ICIs work by blocking checkpoint proteins from binding with their partner proteins. This prevents the “off” signal from being sent, allowing the T cells to kill cancer cells. One such drug act against a checkpoint protein called PD-1 or its partner protein PD-L1. Some tumors turn down the T cell response by producing lots of PD-L1. Recent years…

July 21, 2022

2022 Mizzou Faculty Alumni Awards – Notable Presence from MUIDSI

The 67th Annual Faculty Alumni Awardees were announced  on July 20, 2022.  Dr. Chi-Ren Shyu, MU IDSI Director; Dr. Lori Popejoy, MU IDSI Core Faculty and Interim Dean of Sinclair School of Nursing; and Dr. Dr. Stevan Whitt, Senior Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs of Medicine and MU IDSI’s long term physician collaborator, were among the six faculty awardees this year.  According to Mizzou Alumni Association, “First celebrated in 1968, the Faculty Alumni Awards highlight the contributions of exceptional individuals to the University’s growth and core mission, through their professional accomplishments, teaching and research excellence or service to the institution.” To…

July 5, 2022

Dr. Popejoy leads MU Sinclair School of Nursing as Interim Dean

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May 3, 2022

Dr. Blake Meyers Elected to the National Academy of Sciences

Dr. Blake Meyers, MUIDSI Informatics PhD program Core Faculty and Professor in the Division of Plant Science and Technology, and jointly appointed as a Principal Investigator and Member of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, has been elected as a Member of the US National Academy of Sciences.  https://www.danforthcenter.org/news/blake-meyers-elected-to-national-academy-of-sciences/

April 27, 2022

AMIA Informatics Summit Best Student Paper Award

By Karly Balslew On March 21st, doctoral student Humayera Islam won the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) Student Paper Competition award for the 2022 AMIA Informatics Summit that was held in Chicago. “It’s one of the biggest platforms for informatics people,” Islam said. “It’s very a very diverse and multidisciplinary platform where anybody that works in this area (informatics) can show their work.”  Students from across the country submitted papers for AMIA 2022 Informatics Summit. Submitted papers then went through a peer-review process before judges selected the top five best papers. These top five were chosen to compete in the…