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Colloquia Archive

The Emerging Field of Translational Bioinformatics: A National Perspective

October 10, 2008

Abstract

Translational Bioinformatics is an emerging interdisciplinary field of applied research and development that merges bioinformatics, clinical informatics and translational research. Work performed by my groups at the University of Michigan in our NIH National Center for Integrative Biomedical Informatics (NCIBI) and in our Biomedical Informatics Program of the U-M CTSA will illustrate the power and promise of this approach.

Detailed examples illustrating the application of integrative biomedical informatics to accelerate research and understanding of prostate cancer progression, metabolism and diabetes modeling, and of bipolar disorder will be given. Perspectives on how this problem-driven integrative approach enhances interactions with the NCBC, CTSA, BIRN, and caBIG national biomedical informatics communities will be described.

Biography

Brian D. Athey, Professor of Biomedical Informatics in the Departments of Psychiatry and Internal Medicine, and founding Associate Director of the Center for Computational Medicine and Biology, at the University of Michigan Medical School. Dr. Athey is recognized as one of the nation’s experts in the new field of translational bioinformatics. In the Mid-1980s, Dr. Athey proposed the double helical crossed-linker model for the structure of chromatin. Dr. Athey established the first nationwide Internet2 Visible Human Project demonstration and was Principal Investigator of the DARPA Virtual Soldier Project. He currently heads the NIH National Center for Integrative Biomedical Informatics (NCIBI.org), one of seven NIH Roadmap Centers for Biomedical Computing. Dr. Athey is Director of the Biomedical Informatics Program in the Michigan Institute for Clinical and Health Research, and is national co-chair of the Clinical and Translational Sciences Award (CTSA) informatics operations committee. He currently serves as a special advisor to the Director of Office of Portfolio Analysis and Strategic Initiatives (OPASI), in the office of the Director of the NIH. In 2000, Brian was named a Peace Fellow of the Federation of American Scientists (FAS.org) for his work in the 1990s to combat biological warfare and terrorism.

Additional information about Brian Athey is available at http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bleu/.