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),…

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.

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…

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…

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…

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…

Computationally-Determined FliC Linked Recognition Epitope Micelles for Burkholderia Vaccination

Human disease caused by Burkholderia spp. is a serious problem in many parts of the world including infection of immunocompromised patients and those with cystic fibrosis.  Traditional antimicrobial therapy is protracted and problematic. The goal of this cooperated structural vaccinology project is to identify novel immune dominant and cryptic linked B and T cell epitopes for the development of efficacious vaccines against Burkholderia mallei and B. pseudomallei flagellar protein FliC. For our in silico part works, we will screen the greater than 30 known genomic/proteomic data sets of Burkholderia spp. including both pathogenic and non-pathogenic strains.  Identified sequences of interest will be scored for inclusion of both a putative T…

Dynamically Predict Risk of 30-day Hospital Readmission for Diabetic Patients Using a Data Stream Mining Approach

Early hospital readmissions can negatively impact patients’ quality of life and hospitals’ income. Intensive efforts have been made to develop 30-day hospital readmission risk prediction models. Most of the reported statistical and machine learning models were built with static datasets. The reality, however, is that data arrives sequentially and the trend may evolve over time. As a result, many static models failed in practice. To make the models up-to-date, the traditional approach is re-training them from scratch periodically, which can be expensive. Most importantly, it is difficult to determine and discard outdated knowledge from the models using this approach. In…

Informatics Approaches to Uncover the Molecular Mechanisms of Endometriosis in Clinical Patients

Endometriosis, a complex and common gynecological disorder affecting 5–10% of reproductive-age women, is characterized by the growth of endometrial tissue outside of the uterine cavity. Accumulating evidence indicates that various epigenetic aberrations are associated with endometriosis. In our study, we have methylation data and clinical information on 80 patients (36 controls and 44 cases) from a clinical study. Our objectives are to identify the genomic regions associated with endometriosis and identify the specific genes associated with endometriosis after adjusting for potential confounding variables. We have developed a bioinformatics methylation data analysis pipeline in-house using several open source tools including FastQC,…