Oct. 9, 2017
Dr. Gregory Alexander recently awarded AHRQ grant.
Dr. Gregory Alexander, from The Sinclair School of Nursing, was recently awarded a $1,995,522.00 AHRQ grant. This grant will support an interdisciplinary research team who are already contributing to clinical research in long-term care settings. The PI is a doctorally-prepared RN and fellow in the American Academy of Nursing with over two decades of work in diverse projects, settings and disciplines. Co-Investigators include Richelle Koopman, Lori Popejoy, Abu Mosa, and Chelsea Deroche.
Oct. 9, 2017
Understanding disease through integrated molecular and clinical analyses
Abstract:Traditional biomedical experiments are designed to study a single cohort for a single disease using a single technology. By studying disease with such a narrow lens, researchers make discoveries that are not reproducible because they are not representative of the real heterogeneity of disease. By integrating data from over 40 studies and 7,000 patients, we establish a robust signature of disease which correlates with disease activity and persists across blood, tissue, and sorted cell populations. We compare relationships of 104 diseases based on molecular and clinical manifestations from 41,000 gene expression samples and 2 million patient records. Finally, we contextualize…
Sep. 26, 2017
Epigenetic adaptation to environment in long lives trees
Oak represents a valuable natural resource across Northern Hemisphere ecosystems, attracting a large research community studying its genetics, ecology, conservation, and management. Here we introduce a draft genome assembly of valley oak (Quercus lobata) using Illumina, PacBio and Dovetail sequencing of adult leaf tissue of a tree found in an accessible, well-studied, natural southern California population. We next utilize this genome to carry out landscape epigenetics studies. DNA methylation in plants affects transposon silencing, transcriptional regulation and thus phenotypic variation. One unanswered question is whether DNA methylation could be involved in local adaptation of plant populations to their environments. If methylation…
Sep. 26, 2017
Blockchain Technologies for Healthcare – Technical Challenges and Potential Applications
Blockchain is a technology of distributed ledger originally applied in the financial world. Bitcoin is one of the most adoptable cryptocurrencies based on Blockchain technique. The success of Bitcoin in technology means Blockchain has the potential for decentralized transaction validation, data provenance, data sharing, and data integration in different fields. Ethereum is a Blockchain-based platform with smart contract functionality inside. Smart contract is similar to coded protocol which enforce the workflow of data sharing. To date, most of academic papers for Blockchain in non-financial domains are still very conceptual and creating skepticism about the applicability of the technology and what it can achieve. At MU, we are experiencing the Ethereum platform to develop informatics tools for…
Sep. 13, 2017
Dr. Elizabeth King recently awarded National Science Foundation grant
Drs. Troy Zars and Elizabeth King, in the Division of Biological Sciences, were recently awarded a $462,900 National Science Foundation grant! This grant will be providing funding for a project which will focus on how genes underlie variation in learning and memory performance in fruit flies. Additionally, this grant will support an outreach program called Stepping Into Science. Stepping Into Science aims to diversify the scientific pipeline by partnering high school students with MU graduate students. Stepping Into Science was founded by Patricka Williams-Simon, a graduate student who is being co-mentored by Zars and King. Read more:https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-06/uom-mrr060517.php
Sep. 12, 2017
Data Mining for Genetic Combinations Relevant to Autism Subtypes
Autism is characterized by a complex set of behavioral, social, and cognitive deficits. Extensive variation of these phenotypes suggests the existence of autism subtypes that likely have distinct genetic etiologies. The lack of unifying genotypes common to autism patients supports this subtype structure, and suggests that the onset of autism is due to combinations of genetic factors. The ability to precisely diagnose autism subtypes using genetic markers would lead to earlier and more specific treatments and improve outcomes, stressing the need for research which increases our understanding of the genetic etiologies of autism subtypes. In this research, we identify combinations…
Sep. 5, 2017
Analysis of Influence of Additional Diagnostic Clues During Pathology Diagnosis
Traditional pathology diagnostic process routinely relies on disease-specific diagnostic clues. We propose an informatics pipeline to identify and quantify additional diagnostic clues that, in addition to traditional disease-specific clues, can improve diagnostic outcomes and decrease the chance of diagnostic pitfalls. We used our PathEdEx whole-slide imaging platform to record user activities related to diagnosing a cancerous tissue slide along with the biological features that were noted in the tissue by the examining pathologist as relevant to the diagnosis. To identify and quantify additional diagnostic clues that can improve diagnosis, we extended association rule mining techniques to measure information gain of the additional…
Aug. 11, 2017
A Blockchain Platform for Healthcare
Although Blockchain is much more investigated within the financial sector, it is gradually edging into other industries such as healthcare. Blockchain provides a trust mechanism in a cyber-system. Various last mile issues left to be resolved for establishing an end to end trust cyber physical system. This talk will discuss various aspects of blockchain last mile issues applied in the medical area. Especially, for data integrity, trust and secure data sharing technology specially fit for precision medicine supporting patient centric healthcare model. This is an international collaboration project among Asia University, Taiwan, China Medical University Hospital, Taiwan, University of Missouri,…
July 27, 2017
J. Chris Pires Celebrated for Research Contributions
J. Chris Pires , a Professor in the Division of Biological Sciences, was selected for the 2017 Chancellor’s Award for Outstanding Research and Creative Activity. The award is given once a year to a professor who has made outstanding contributions in research and has great promise for achieving wider recognition. It is one of the highest research honors bestowed by the MU campus. Read more: