Goal #2: Promote partnerships and collaborations

Hiral Shah, M.D., leverages the community knowledge she gained about Parkinson’s disease (PD) through her CTSA training and published an illustrated book full of true stories of people connected to disease.&nbsp;&nbsp;Dr. Shah credits the Irving Institute’s 2019 Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) Scholars and Awards training program she participated in as the catalyst for acquiring the language and skills required to do “truly collaborative community engagement work” and finding and connecting with community partners that have been essential in her efforts to develop an initiative around addressing health disparities as it relates to PD for minorities…&nbsp;&nbsp;Read the full article <a href="https://www.irvinginstitute.columbia.edu/news/irving-institute-pilot-awardee-finds-new-ways-approach-community-engagement" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">here</a>.

Columbia University's Clinical and Translational Science Award

medium_2023July11_IrvingInstitutePilotAwardee_Image.jpg

small_2023July11_IrvingInstitutePilotAwardee_Image.jpg

thumbnail_2023July11_IrvingInstitutePilotAwardee_Image.jpg

2023July11_IrvingInstitutePilotAwardee_Image.jpg

Columbia University

Irving Institute Pilot Awardee Finds New Ways to Approach Community Engagement

- Any -

Goal #4: Improve clinical research

There’s one question that <a href="https://hollingscancercenter.musc.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">MUSC Hollings Cancer Center</a> researcher <a href="https://education.musc.edu/MUSCApps/FacultyDirectory/Dahne-Jennifer" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Jennifer Dahne, Ph.D.</a>, co-director of the <a href="https://research.musc.edu/resources/sctr/research-resources/remote-and-virtual-trials" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">remote and virtual trials program</a> at the <a href="https://research.musc.edu/resources/sctr" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">South Carolina Clinical &amp; Translational Research Institute</a>, hears more than any other as she consults with clinical researchers about how to set up remote trials, also known as decentralized trials. Will these trials overcome the barriers that make it difficult for minority and underserved populations to participate in clinical trials? It’s also a question she often discusses with her peers at other academic medical centers that are also home to Clinical and Translational Science Award hubs.&nbsp;&nbsp;Dahne thinks it’s too soon to give a definitive answer to that question. She argues in a recent <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2805793?resultClick=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Journal of the American Medical Association Viewpoint article</a> and in the linked Q&amp;A that rigorous evidence is lacking as to how these trials affect the diversity of clinical trial enrollment…&nbsp;&nbsp;Read the full article <a href="https://web.musc.edu/about/news-center/2023/06/01/more-evidence-needed-to-confirm-promise-of-remote-or-decentralized-trials" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">here</a>.

South Carolina Clinical & Translational Research Institute

MUSC Hollings Cancer Center researcher, Jennifer Dahne, Ph.D.

small_2023July11_MoreEvidenceNeeded_Image.jpg

thumbnail_2023July11_MoreEvidenceNeeded_Image.jpg

2023July11_MoreEvidenceNeeded_Image.jpg

Medical University of South Carolina

More Evidence Needed to Confirm Promise of Remote or Decentralized Trials

X-logo-teal_80x66.png

ri_linkedin_fill_408497d4b5_96748f4451.png

The newly constituted Southeast Wisconsin Data Science Collaborative, which includes the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) - Clinical and Translational Science Institute of Southeast Wisconsin (CTSI), together with several other CTSI of Southeast Wisconsin regional member institutions such as Marquette University (MU) and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UW-M), in partnership with Northwestern Mutual Data Science Institute (NMDSI), hosted the first multi-campus Hack for Health event this Spring. &nbsp;&nbsp;The Hack for Health event, also known as a hackathon, is defined as a social event that brings computer programmers, data scientists and other professionals together, to improve upon and to build new software programs, applications, or new computational approaches to healthcare data. Twenty-three students from MCW, MU and UW-M worked competitively across seven teams, over three days to analyze real patient data from Froedtert Hospital and MCW, by applying machine learning and advanced statistical analysis to identify unique and novel findings and presented their final outcomes to a panel of judges. Mentors from participating institutions were available to the teams throughout the event. &nbsp;&nbsp;The topic of the event was “Obstructive Sleep Apnea and its Relationship with Cancer.” Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a common sleeping disorder characterized by repeated breathing pauses during sleep that lead to fragmented sleep and decreased oxygen levels. OSA can affect at least one third of the adult population, if not more. Recent studies have suggested that several sleep disruptions and disorders represent significant risk factors for some forms of cancers. &nbsp;&nbsp;“These are major and very prevalent problems and disorders in the general population. As such, after a critical appraisal of the existing literature, and noticing several emergent relationships between different types of cancer and various sleep disorders, we proposed to explore if there was an actual connection between these disorders in a large, real-world healthcare dataset”, shared Octavian C. Ioachimescu, M.D., Ph.D., MBA, Professor of Medicine at MCW; CTSI Associate Director for Training and Education, medical director, Clinical Trials Office Integration at the CTSI of Southeast Wisconsin and Vice-Chair of Medicine for Clinical Research and Data Analytics. “The sky is the limit. Our talented students are here to help deciphering these relationships, and to create new knowledge.”&nbsp;“This Hackathon represented the strong culture of collaboration among our institutions. Collaboration is key to enhancing our ability to serve our patients and our communities, by allowing us to achieve together what we may not be able to achieve alone. Congratulations to all for this great achievement” shares Reza Shaker, M.D., Director of CTSI, Associate Provost, Senior Associate Dean and Division Chief for gastroenterology and hepatology at MCW.&nbsp;The opening and closing sessions were hosted on the MCW Milwaukee campus. Students were able to work at any of the four participating campuses over the course of the event. Each team submitted their programming code, followed by five-minute presentations, which were assessed by six volunteer judges representing the partner institutions and one external judge from Stanford University, i.e., Dr. Miranda Tan. &nbsp;&nbsp;The first-place team received a one-on-one mentoring session from a leader from one of the participating organizations. All winning teams were presented with trophies and different books on artificial intelligence at the closing event on April 28th. &nbsp;&nbsp;First place was awarded to Team 6:Xiaowei Dong, UWMAli Nemati, UWMYizhou Lu, UWMAravind Reddy Guda, UWMMentor: Brett Truelove, NMMentor: Spencer Huang, UWM&nbsp;Team 6 conducted a survival analysis to identify how OSA affects the likelihood of cancer mortality. Initial results with the data set provided demonstrated no significant difference regarding survival of patients with OSA compared to those without. Team members included biomedical Ph.D. students.&nbsp;Second place was awarded to Team 4: &nbsp;K M Sajjadul Islam, MarquetteJiawei Wu, MarquettePushyan Jhaveri, UWMVinaya Valsan, UWMMentor: Swapnil Tripathi, UWMMentor: Shengtong Han, Marquette&nbsp;Team 4 constructed a React application (a JavaScript-based user interface development library) that dissected the data and observed interactions between variables. The emphasis of their project was placed on the concept of building the app and the team showcased a live demonstration of the application during their presentation. Team members included students in the computer science/information science fields.&nbsp;&nbsp;Third place was awarded to Team 2: &nbsp;Prashansa Gharat, UWMAsha Dass, UWMJan Kretschmann, UWMOmar Abu-rmaileh, UWMMentor: Katia Mastropas, NMMentor: Huimin Zhao, UWM&nbsp;Team 2 concentrated on the types of cancers affected by OSA. The team was able to identify two types of cancers, lung and retroperitoneum/peritoneum, that have a significantly higher likelihood of presence after a patient is diagnosed with OSA. The team consisted of students in the computer science and information science fields. &nbsp;&nbsp;“These students are paving the pathway forward for new and novel research applications,” shared Jonathan Stark, Ed.D., Executive Director of the Northwestern Mutual Data Science Institute, “In my 20 years of working with students, I’m constantly amazed by their creativity and their enthusiasm.”&nbsp;The next Hack for Health event will build on the lessons learned and the solutions found during this inaugural event. The partner organizations hope to offer the event on a bi-annual basis.

Clinical and Translational Science Institute of Southeastern Wisconsin

Two students work together on their laptops as part of the "Hack for Health" event.

small_2023July11_InauguralHackforHealth_Image.jpg

thumbnail_2023July11_InauguralHackforHealth_Image.jpg

2023July11_InauguralHackforHealth_Image.jpg

Medical College of Wisconsin

Inaugural Hack for Health Explores the Relationship between Obstructive Sleep Apnea and Cancer

CTSA CCOS

Home

About

CTSA Groups and Meetings

Resources

News

Help

CTSA News

Date

Share this News Post

Irving Institute Pilot Awardee Finds New Ways to Approach Community Engagement