DBMI Newsletters

Autumn 2018 Overview:
Machine Learning Platform Identifies Unknown Genetic Drivers of Cancer to Personalize Treatment Strategies
by Alyssa B. Lypson, MS, Pitt sciVelo
Professors Greg Cooper, MD, PhD and Xinghua Lu, MD, PhD of the University of Pittsburgh Department of Biomedical Informatics (Pitt DBMI) are innovating new methods to improve cancer treatment strategies, starting with melanoma. What’s their strategy? Machine learning (artificial intelligence) tools to enable precision oncology.
Full Article
Research Funding Highlights
Erik S. Wright, PhD
Dr. Wright is a 2018 Awardee of the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award for his project entitled “Uncovering Synergistic Antibiotic Cocktails with Comparative Genomics”. Dr. Wright’s project will develop strategies for mitigating the rise of antimicrobial resisistance using comparative genomics. The positive outcomes of this work include discovering new antibiotics for drug development and revealing strategies for combating the rise of antibiotic resistance.
Full Article
Dr. Yalini Senathirajah: Bridging the Gap between Clinicians and Technology
by Melissa Schwenk, Pitt DBMI
How does technology evolve to meet a clinician’s way of thinking, public health emergencies, and ease of use? How do you bridge the gap between biomedical informatics databases and the clinical side of research? How does training to become a veterinarian lead to a doctorate in biomedical informatics with a specialized interest in designing better electronic health records and health IT systems?
Full Article
Wendy Chapman examines her time at the University of Pittsburgh
by Melissa Schwenk, Pitt DBMI
“Keeping an open mind” has always been Dr. Wendy Chapman’s motto as she climbed from a Bachelor’s degree in Linguistics to a PhD in Medical Informatics. Dr. Chapman currently leads the University of Utah’s Department of Biomedical Informatics, the oldest informatics department in the U.S., and she started her career at Pitt. She came to the University of Pittsburgh in 2000 as an NLM postdoctoral fellow doing natural language processing (NLP) and stayed as an assistant professor until 2010.
Full Article
Pitt DBMI Doctoral Student Andy King Uses Eyetracking to Study Navigation of the Electronic Medical Record
by Noreen Doloughty, Pitt DBMI
Andy King is no stranger to remaining calm in stressful situations. He’s worked as a whitewater rafting guide throughout his biomedical informatics education at the University of Pittsburgh. “I’m probably not as nervous as I should be,” Andy said about his thesis defense a week prior to the event.