Track: Information Technology in Health Care
Minitrack: Bioinformatics Tools for Health Care and Translational
                   Research

Incorporating Information Technology (IT) in Health Care continues to receive tremendous attention of researchers, National Agencies and Health care providers. In particular, Translations Research has been identified by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as a major priority, and many large grants have been awarded in the last couple of years by NIH to establish centers for Translational Research across the country.

In the current Information age, further progress of Medical Sciences requires successful integration with Computational and Information Sciences. The proposed Mini-track attempts to attract innovative ways of how such integration can be achieved via Bioinformatics and translational research. Translational research is aimed to connect basic science and clinical research. In the medical domain, basic research focuses on the development of analytical and experimental methods to better understand physical, chemical and biological processes on the molecular, cellular, tissue and organism levels. Clinical research focuses primarily on the improvement of patient care and clinical outcomes. The goal of the mini-track to provide a diverse spectrum of how Bioinformatics tools can help to effectively transfer new knowledge from bench to the clinic and from clinic back to the bench.

Main topics to be covered in this mini-track include development of algorithms and tools aimed to solve the vast spectrum of challenging IT problems appearing in health Care and in various areas related to Translational Research, particularly issues related to the ability to utilize heterogeneous Biological and Clinical databases. These developments include the use of advanced mathematical and statistical methods (such as graph theory, Bayesian networks, hidden Markov models, machine learning, etc.), effective use of novel computational approaches (such as computer clusters and grid computing), as well as utilization of advanced Information Technology technique (such as ontology, data warehousing, integration of information, etc.).
 

Minitrack Co-Chairs:

Hesham H. Ali (Primary Contact)
Department of Computer Science
College of Information Science and Technology
University of Nebraska at Omaha
Omaha, NE 68182
Phone: 402-554-3623
Fax: 402-554-3284
Email: hesham@unomaha.edu
 

Simon Sherman
Nebraska Informatics Center for the Life Sciences
Eppley Cancer Institute, UNMC
986805 Nebraska Medical Center
Omaha, NE 68198-6805
Phone: 402-559-4497
Fax: 402-559-4651
E-mail: ssherm@unmc.edu