News

A group of middle and high school students from Manuel A. Pérez participated in a guided tour of the RCMI-CCRHD Research Facilities. The students showed great enthusiasm for the visit and the information shared. Among the students, 70% expressed that they greatly enjoyed the activity, and 80% expressed a strong desire to participate in similar activities in the future. Moreover, 50% mentioned that the visit provided them with significant motivation to pursue a career in sciences. This event was organized collaboratively by the Administrative and Community Engagement cores of the RCMI-CCRHD and the BioCom Project.
 

Drs. Abiel Roche Lima and Frances Heredia Negón, from the RCMI-CCRHD Integrated Informatics Services Unit, participated in the 14th International Conferente on Machine Learning, ICML 2023. The Conference was held in Honolulu, Hawaii from July 23-31, 2023. This event serves as the main gathering of professionals committed to advancing the field of machine learning within the scope of artificial intelligence. Dr. Roche Lima was a guest speaker at the Conference.

The abstract titled "Changes in women's physiological and cervical disease status associate with changes in the cervicovaginal fungal communities" was selected as one of the top ten scientific abstracts in the category of Basic and Applied Minority Health and Health Disparities Research at the 2023 RCMI Consortium National Conference. Mr. Eduardo Tosado is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Microbiology. His poster highlighted the results of his thesis research which he will be completing in May 2023. The RCMI National Conference was held on April 12-14, 2023, in Bethesda, MD.

The leadership of the Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning Consortium to Advance Health Equity And Researcher Diversity (AIM-AHEAD) Southeast Hub, at Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM), visited the University of Puerto Rico Medical Sciences Campus (UPR-MSC) on April 24-25, 2023. The AIM-AHEAD is a consortium of institutions and organizations that have a core mission to serve minorities and other under-represented or underserved groups impacted by health disparities. The Consortium is committed to leveraging the potential of Al/ML to accelerate the pace of biomedical innovation while prioritizing and addressing health disparities and inequities. Dr. Herman A. Taylor, Lead MPI and Director of the MSM Cardiovascular Research Institute led the delegation from the Southeast Hub. The visit was organized by the RCMI Integrated Informatics Services facility under the direction of Dr. Abiel Roche-Lima and included meetings with leadership and investigators interested in Al/ML withinnd outside the UPR-MSC, seminars, and group discussions.

Award Number: Grant # 1R16GM149372-01

Federal Funding Agency: National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), NIH

Project Title: Merging Artificial Intelligence (Al) and Pharmacometrics to Elucidate Gene-Drug Interactions Linked to Clopidogrel Responsiveness in Caribbean Hispanic Patients.

Project Description/Goal: This NIH-funded research project focuses on studying gene-drug-drug interactions (GDDIs) to estimate the modifying effect of cilostazol on the weighted genetic risk score (WGRS)-driven prediction model for clopidogrel responsiveness in Caribbean Hispanic cardiovascular patientsvpharmacogenomic-driven prescription guidelines for this population while also using a semi-mechanistic population-based PK-PD analysis of such GDDI. The project combines machine learning techniques (l.e., artificial intelligence), a pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics modeling approach, active metabolites measurements, and genotyping with the development of more accurate rules for better predictability of GDDis between clopidogrel and cilostazol in cardiovascular patients from this medically underserved population.

PI: Dr. Jorge Duconge, Ph.D. / Collaborator: Dr. Abiel Roche, Ph.D.

Publications: 

1. Summary of Year-One Efforts of the RCMI Consortium to Enhance research Capacity and Diversity with Data Science
2. Infrastructure Core Facilities at Research Centers in Minority Institution: Part I-Research Resources Managemnt, Operations and Best Practices.

Abstract: The brain is made up of billions of neurons, which control all actions performed by us. In epilepsy, the pattern order of brain signals is altered, causing epileptiform discharges in an individual's brain. Approximately 1% of the world population has epilepsy and, therefore, there is a need for studies that can help in the diagnosis and treatment of this disorder. The objective of this work is to develop a machine learning-based approach to predict epileptic seizures using non-invasive electroencephalography (EEG). Therefore, the classification of interictal and preictal states was performed using thE CHB-MIT database. The algorithm was developed to predict epileptic seizures in multiple subjects using a patient-independent approach. The Discrete Wavelet Transform was used to perform the decomposition of the EEG signals in 5 levels and, as characteristics, the Spectral Power, the Mean and the Standard Deviation were studied, in order to analyze which, one would present the best result and as a classifier, the Supported Vector Machine (SVM). The study achieved an accuracy of 92.30%, 84.60% and 76.92% for the Power, Standard Deviation and Mean characteristics, respectively.

Dr. Abiel- Roche-Lima was an awardee of the Pilot Project Program by AIM-AHEAD

Dr. Frances Herdia-Negron was an awardee of the Reasearch Fellowship Program by AIM-AHEAD

Dr. Abiel Roche-Lima, Lead Investigator of the RCMI-CCRHD Reasearch Infrastructure Core, participated in the AIM-AHEAD Annual Meeting held in Fort Worth, Texas

The Bioinformatics and Health Informatics Portal has been developed to provide information and tools in bioinformatics and health informatics for researchers, professors, students, clinicians and general public focused on medical institutions in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean.