{"id":1704,"date":"2022-08-30T00:20:49","date_gmt":"2022-08-30T00:20:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/idsc.miami.edu\/magazine\/?p=1704"},"modified":"2023-01-03T20:34:30","modified_gmt":"2023-01-03T20:34:30","slug":"biomedical-students-gain-data-analysis-skills-in-new-idsc-miller-school-collaborative-course","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/idsc.miami.edu\/magazine\/biomedical-students-gain-data-analysis-skills-in-new-idsc-miller-school-collaborative-course\/","title":{"rendered":"Biomedical Students Gain Data Analysis Skills in New IDSC\/Miller School Collaborative Course"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joey Schulz<\/strong> is looking forward to applying newly learned data science skills to his research into type one diabetes, a chronic disease with many long-term issues. \u201cWe could use deep learning algorithms to find the biomarkers to see if an individual has type one diabetes and why certain patients respond to treatment while others do not,\u201d said Schulz, a doctoral student at the UM Miller School of Medicine<\/a><\/span>. \u201cThis work, which involves massive amounts of data, could result in identifying lives that we could actually change for the better.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMedicine today is highly driven by
\ndata research, and we want to educate
\nour students on advanced IT tools
\nand technologies so they can
\nbecome leaders in the future.\u201d<\/h3>\n

\"RaviSchulz was one of a group of students at the Miller School who completed a two-week summer course, \u201cData Science for Bioinformatics,\u201d<\/strong> offered through the Institute for Data Science and Computing (IDSC). \u201cThis important training course leveraged Python programming tools to provide students with hands-on experiences in data visualization, machine learning, and pipelines for bioinformatics applications,\u201d said Ravi Vadapalli<\/strong>, PhD, Director, IDSC Advanced Computing Systems<\/a><\/span>. \u201cMedicine today is highly driven by data research, and we want to educate our students on advanced IT tools and technologies so they can become leaders in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vadapalli taught the summer course as part of the Miller School\u2019s Program in Biomedical Sciences<\/a><\/span> (PiBS), a first-year umbrella offering for biomedical Ph.D. students. Other participants included Andrew Adams, Rabia Khurshid, Jessica Dennison, Maddison Marshall, Anita Safronenka, Sam Taylor, Mazzen Eldeeb, Liliana Garcia Martinez<\/strong>, and T.A. Chris Armstrong<\/strong> (PhD student in Cancer Research<\/a><\/span>).<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully, this research could lead
\nto a new drug discovery or
\nother treatment avenue for people
\nwho now must rely in insulin.\u201d<\/h3>\n

\u201cWe asked our students to discuss how data science tools could be applied to their current research,\u201d added Vadapalli. \u201cThis can lead to new streams of research opportunities and prepare them for high-impact collaborative projects using IDSC\u2019s Advanced Computing Services.\u201d For instance, Schulz\u2019s project, \u201cDeep Learning to Elucidate Type 1 Diabetes<\/strong>,\u201d focused on applying IT tools to his laboratory studies on the molecular and metabolic issues that can lead to chronic disease. \u201cWhile there are 4 million people in the U.S. living with type 1 diabetes, only about 5 percent respond to treatment,\u201d he said. \u201cHopefully, this research could lead to a new drug discovery or other treatment avenue for people who now must rely in insulin.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like Schulz, Taylor believes that collaboration with IDSC\u2019s powerful resources can accelerate biomedical research. \u201cI am working in a Miller School pharmacology lab on issues related to cellular micro environments, such as cancer tumors,\u201d he said. \u201cBeing able to do preliminary workups on the Triton supercomputer<\/a><\/span> allows us to make new discoveries regarding potential drug targets, such as G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). That\u2019s one example of why computer skills are so important for biomedical researchers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Filling a Need<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"ColleenThe IDSC-supported bioinformatics course fills an important need in the medical school, according to Coleen Atkins<\/strong><\/a>, PhD, Associate Professor of Neurological Surgery<\/a>, Neurosurgery graduate program Director and Chair of Graduate Studies<\/a><\/span> at the Miller School. \u201cThe increasing sophistication of scientific techniques has brought about a revolution in data analysis and visualization,\u201d she said. \u201cThis has spurred the field of bioinformatics, which combines computer programming and biological data to identify and understand patterns in the data.\u201d<\/p>\n

Atkins added that bioinformatics tools, supported by IDSC\u2019s supercomputing resources, allow Miller School researchers to analyze thousands of genes, looking for patterns to advance basic science and clinical applications. \u201cThanks to Dr. Vadapalli and IDSC, we have now put together a series of courses to train our graduate students in bioinformatics,\u201d she said. \u201cThese courses range from the basics of learning how to program a computer to having the students take their own dissertation research data and develop a pipeline of analysis using bioinformatics tools. It\u2019s an ideal multidisciplinary collaboration.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

Pictured below: Dr. Colleen Atkins with her Lab Staff<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Colleen<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joey Schulz is looking forward to applying newly learned data science skills to his research into type one diabetes, a chronic disease with many long-term issues. \u201cWe could use deep learning algorithms to find the biomarkers to see if an individual has type one diabetes and why certain patients respond to treatment while others do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1602,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47,634],"tags":[666,668,667,665,546],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/idsc.miami.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1704"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/idsc.miami.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/idsc.miami.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idsc.miami.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idsc.miami.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1704"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/idsc.miami.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1755,"href":"https:\/\/idsc.miami.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1704\/revisions\/1755"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idsc.miami.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/idsc.miami.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idsc.miami.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idsc.miami.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}