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:    

July 25, 2017

Shi-Jie Chen receives his second concurrent NIH R01 award.

Shi-Jie Chen recieved an NIH R01 award entitled: “New computational tools for predicting ion effects in RNR structures” for four years with approximately $1.2M budget. The grant is to develop new algorithm, database, software and web server for metal ion binding to nucleic acids especially RNA molecures. The bioinformatics grant was reviewed in the Biodata Management and Analysis (BDMA) study section. Dr. Xiao Heng is the co-I of this grant.

July 13, 2017

MUII Dissertation Defense-Awatef Ben Ramadan

Steps in Transforming the Missouri Cancer Registry (MCR) from an Incidence Registry to a Survival Registry   Female Breast cancer (FBC) is the most common invasive cancer among women of all races and ethnicities in the United States (US). We aimed to estimate FBC burden in Missouri in terms of FBC incidence, mortality and survival rates; to visualize these results; and to assess the usability of the Missouri Cancer Registry and Research Center’s (MCR-ARC)’s interactive maps. FBC survival data were calculated from 2004 to 2010 after matching MCR’s FBC cases with Missouri death records, Social Security Death Index (SSDI),…

June 1, 2017

MUII Dissertation Defense-Lynsey Whitacre

Alternative Applications of Whole Genome De Novo Assembly in Animal Genomics   Improvements in whole genome sequencing technologies have allowed substantial increases in the amount of data that can be generated on a single individual. This has facilitated many de novo genome assembly projects in the animal sciences. The overarching goal of de novo assembly is to overlap sequencing reads to construct contiguous sequences, also known as contigs or scaffolds, representing the genome. Once a high quality de novo assembly is constructed, it is often used to determine variation in the genome or simply as a reference for future resequencing projects.

May 9, 2017

MUII Dissertation Defense- Rhonda Archie

Information Technology (IT) Interconnectivity in a Rural Health Setting: A Conceptual Model   Current and past developments in Health (HIT) systems in rural settings have focused on the use of electronic health records by health professionals. These systems were conducted in standalone mode, or coupled with the integration of HIT systems of two or more other HIT systems. In addition, this lack of interconnectivity involved diminished coordination in information sharing among the systems (Bahensky 2008; McCullough 2009). Grossman (2006) and Kevin (2008) investigated the state of HIT systems’ interconnectivity using networks in a rural health setting to promote sharing and…

May 9, 2017

MUII Comprehensive Exam- Saad Khan

Comparison of histone modifications across species A cell’s identity is determined by distinct sets of genes that are expressed at a given point of time. An important factor in determining which set of genes are expressed is the cells epigenome. Epigenomes are known to play an important role across all eukaryotic species in gene regulation, genome integrity, dosage compensation and development. Histone modifications are an important component of the epigenome. These histone marks are post translational modifications that take place on the n-terminal tails of histone proteins. The growth of complex and heterogeneous epigenomic data sets has led to the…

May 1, 2017

White Mothers’ Willingness to Share Personal Health Data: Survey Results and Future Research Implication

The objective of this research is to understand white mothers’ willingness to share their personal health data (PHD). Studies have shown that participants are willing to share their data when there is a benefit to do so, and when their data are kept private and secure. We recruited a representative sample of white mothers with children without disabilities from an opt-in panel to assess their willingness to share their PHD. We surveyed these mothers on their attitudes and beliefs and trust in data sharing, data sharing thru devices, internet use and interest in future research, and questions related to caregivers…

April 21, 2017

Characterizing Physician EMR Workflow With Clustering and Hilbert Space Filling Curve Visualizations

Understanding sequences of events is paramount to developing a picture of how clinicians interact with other clinicians, patients, and Electronic Medical Records (EMR).  Common methods of assessing clinical workflow include qualitative methods such as video recording, direct observations, or directed user experience testing in a controlled environment. Studies such as these are designed to help understand traditional workflow concepts such as time and motion efficiency, interpersonal communication, and information needs.  Applications for EMR workflow include measuring productivity to help target training, and dynamic EMR experiences based on predicted actions.  Computational, or quantitative, methods can also be applied, such as sequential…