The multidisciplinary and translational nature of the research at Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM) is reflected in our numerous ongoing collaborations with other Medical Center departments, other academic institutions and with private foundations, biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. These activities illustrate a guiding philosophy of the institute–to form alliances and partnerships to help bring innovative new therapies to patients.
- Biochemistry
- Cancer Biology
- Cardiothoracic Surgery
- Center for Biomolecular Imaging
- Comprehensive Cancer Center of Wake Forest University
- Gerontology
- Gastroenterology
- Hematology
- Internal Medicine
- Medical Genetics
- Ophthalmology
- Otolaryngology
- Pathology
- Pediatric Oncology
- Physics
- Physiology and Pharmacology
- Primate Health Center
- Public Health Sciences
- Radiology
- School of Medicine
- Sticht Center on Aging
- Surgery
- Transplant
- Urology
- Vascular Surgery
Q & A with Dr. Metin Gurcan, Director, Wake Forest Center for Biomedical Informatics (WFBMI)
Dr. Metin Gurcan joined Wake Forest Baptist Health in 2017, after serving as Professor of Biomedical Informatics and Pathology at The Ohio State University. He is the founder of the Clinical Image Analysis (CIA) Lab, and his research has focused on the development of computer vision and artificial intelligence techniques to detect and diagnose diseases from medical images.
Please describe the Center for Biomedical Informatics (WFBMI):
Our top priority are the patients and families who can benefit from our work. All of our decisions are driven by how our research, inventions and discoveries can promote positive outcomes. This allows us to partner with research and clinical faculty to turn data into knowledge, and use that knowledge for safer, more effective, and higher quality outcomes for the populations we serve. Overall, this is how we contribute to WFBH’s evolution as a learning health system.
What is the CIA Lab?
The purpose of the lab is to use information gathered from image analysis and deep learning to help clinicians make more accurate decisions, and to aid scientists in exploring unique relationships in complex datasets. The lab is committed to training the next generation of investigators, and consists of junior faculty, students and interns.
What initiatives are WFBMI and Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine working on together?
The Center for Biomedical Informatics and the Institute for Regenerative Medicine are collaborating to improve the capacity to use complex data sets to answer research questions, including the use of informatics and predictive analytics to support the delivery of high-value, population-based care. Institute Director Anthony Atala, MD, is part of the Center for Biomedical Information’s Internal Advisory Board, and the two entities have recently announced a $40,000 pilot award. We are seeking applications that provide innovative and translational informatics solutions to healthcare and biomedical research problems arising in regenerative medicine. Additionally, WFIRM and WFBMI are jointly hiring tenure-track Assistant and Associate Professor faculty members with research interests in Biomedical Informatics and regenerative medicine.
What’s next for WFBMI?
Colloquium: The WFBMI Colloquium is scheduled for Friday, May 10, 2019. This event will bring together researchers from across the translational spectrum interested in developing cross-disciplinary projects in biomedical informatics. The forum will include presentations, networking, poster and travel award announcements, and pilot funding opportunities. Register for the WFMBI online.
Seminar Series: WFBMI will also continue to host speakers who are experts in the field of biomedical informatics. Since April 2018, the center has hosted 15 presenters as part of our Learning Health System Seminar series, covering all aspects of Biomedical Informatics:
- April, 2018: Health Equity and Setting Standards for Collection of Social Determinants of Health Data
- June, 2018: Lessons Learned: Data Use Agreements and Sharing Data with Outside Institutions
- September, 2018: Psychology of Numerical Estimation: What Counts When We’re Not Counting?
- October, 2018: Unraveling Tumor Heterogeneity Using Artificial Intelligence: Radiomics, Radiogenomics and Habitat Imaging
- October, 2018: Real-World Data and the Transformation of Health Care
- November, 2018: Investigating Data Quality to Improve the Reliability of Clinical Data Reuse in the Learning Healthcare System
- November, 2018: Practical Data Science & Informatics Training & Bioconductor as a Use Case
- December, 2018: Computational Pathology: Opportunities and Challenges
- January, 2019: Using Social Media and Electronic Health Records to Address Behavioral Health Research Questions
- February, 2019: From the Bedside to Home: Applying Informatics Methods to Improve Health Outcomes
- February, 2019: A Direct-to-Patient Alert for Glycated Hemoglobin Screening
- February, 2019: Automated and Accurate patient Matching for Electronic Health Record and Child Welfare Databases to Facilitate Data Sharing
- March, 2019: Child Health Improvement through a Learning Health System
- March, 2019: The New Era of Informatics: Data Science with Heterogeneous Sources
- April, 2019: Machine Learning & Real World Evidence: Opportunities & Obstacles
How can WFIRM faculty, staff and students benefit from WFBMI activities?
Join us and become a WFBMI member today. (Open to everyone)
You can also follow us on Twitter (@WFBMI)