Translational Informatics Symposium Recap

A one-day symposium, Translational Informatics: Data driven insights and AI for Precision Medicine and Healthcare was organized by Ritu Pandey, PhD, MHM, Associate Director of Translational Bioinformatics, on October 16 at the University of Arizona. The event was sponsored by the Center for Bioinformatics and Biostatistics and Arizona Cancer Center. This successful symposium brought together researchers, students, clinicians, executive leaders and technologists together for an engaging day for learning and discussing novel approaches to leverage data. The event featured excellent presentations from invited speakers from Emory University, University of Arizona, Banner Health and Genome Oncology that incorporated many aspects of application and utilization of translational informatics in health research. 

Madhusmita Behera, PhD, Chief Research Informatics Officer of Emory Health was one of the keynote speakers and presented how informatics and data science can transform cancer research. Highlighting one of his initiatives in precision medicine, Dan Theodorescu, MD, PhD, Director of the Cancer Center provided overview of the Molecular Twins Precision Oncology Platform while Corey Casper, MD, MPH, Chief Research Officer at Banner health, focused on the strategic health systems that enable precision medicine. 

Spotlight on AI driven tools was provided by Gondy Leroy, PhD, Professor of Information systems who shared her research on machine learning in diagnosing autism and Nirav Merchant, PhD, Director of Data Science Institute spoke about campus initiatives in building LLMs and AI tools. Technology Keynote Speaker from Genome Oncology, Ian Maurer, presented on building autonomous AI agents in oncology for clinical decision making, describing Bio model context protocol and different reasoning models.

Demonstrating University of Arizona’s commitment to harness responsible Artificial Intelligence across education, research and operation, David Ebert, PhD, Chief AI and Data Science Officer at UA, presented the strategic vision and Roadmap for AI driven health innovation for improved outcomes.

There was a vibrant and lengthy questioning session from the audience after every talk, indicating the spirit of the event. 

Attendees had a fun interactive session organized by Justin Starren, MD, PHD, Director of the Center of Biomedical Informatics and Biostatistics, where they participated in live polling of several questions related to Precision Medicine, Bioinformatics, Data infrastructure, Training and Education at UA Campus.

There was a positive community interest in looking for solutions to some of the common concerns that are shared by many at UA and Banner Health. The compiled results from the polls will support the leadership in strategizing and discussing key areas in UAs continued commitment to improve upon informatics capabilities on campus. We plan to move these discussions forward in a meaningful way.