Tag: Dalhousie

Dr. Raza Abidi appointed Digital Health Canada Representative to IMIA

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Join us in congratulating our colleague, Dr. Raza Abidi on being appointed Digital Health Canada Representative to the International Medical Informatics Association! Please see details below for the announcement. Dr. Abidi works alongside Dr. Jong Sung Kim and Dr. Ellen Sweeney on a longstanding research stream on environmental exposures and cancer using data and biological samples (toenails!) from Atlantic PATH. ***** Digital Health Canada’s Board of Directors is pleased to appoint Dr. Raza Abidi to the position of Digital Health Canada Representative to IMIA (the International Medical Informatics Association). Digital Health Canada has been the Canadian Representative since IMIA’s inception in 1980 and is a Charter member. Dr. Abidi is a tenured Professor at the Faculty of Computer Science, Dalhousie University, and holds a cross-appointment as Professor in the Dalhousie Department of Medicine. He is the founding director and lead scientist at the NICHE (kNowledge Intensive Computing in Healthcare Enterprises) research group that conducts interdisciplinary research at the intersection of digital health, artificial intelligence (AI) for healthcare, and digital transformation. Dr. Abidi served on the Digital Health Canada Board of Directors for six years and has a sound understanding of the mission and activities of the association. He is keenly aware of the need to bring the Canadian digital health community and its achievements to the world stage by enabling active participation in IMIA conferences, events, and working groups. Dr. Abidi is an internationally recognized healthcare researcher and leader with multiple international and national awards and recognitions. His primary research focus is Artificial Intelligence (AI) for healthcare and digital health, and he has extensive experience of (a) health data analytics using state-of-the-art AI methods to derive data-driven health intelligence, (b) health knowledge management by applying semantics-driven AI methods to derive knowledge-driven health intelligence by computerizing and operationalizing clinical practice guidelines/workflows, and (c) implementing research outputs as digital health solutions. His collaborative research activities have successfully led to (a) development of innovative point-of-care digital health solutions, (b) digital transformation of clinical workflows as decision support systems, (c) strategic planning and conception of new research themes and projects, (d) acquisition of multiple competitive research grants from various agencies and industry sponsors, (e) health data analysis and visualization, (f) health system evaluation and optimization studies, (g) publication of research articles at top-tier venues and invited talks, and (h) mentoring of junior researchers and talent development. I am confident that I can showcase the full potential of Canada in digital health research, innovation and entrepreneurship, and engage the broader Digital Health Canada community in IMIA activities so that Canada is regarded as a hub of digital health innovation and transformation. – Dr. Raza Abidi, Digital Health Canada Representative to the International Medical Informatics Association About IMIA IMIA provides leadership and expertise to the interdisciplinary health informatics community around the world. IMIA aims to enable the transformation of healthcare using information technology and plays a key role in promoting and furthering the application of digital technologies in healthcare. IMIA brings together leading scientists, researchers, vendors, developers, and consultants in a global context. Every two years, IMIA holds the preeminent international health informatics conference—World Congress on Medical and Health Informatics: MedInfo—where researchers and practitioners from around the world present their latest work in digital health. About this role As the new Digital Health Canada IMIA representative, Dr. Abidi will act as a liaison between Digital Health Canada and IMIA and will represent Canada on the world stage, connecting Digital Health Canada with representatives from corresponding national organizations and focusing on advances in digital health from other countries. Dr. Abidi will exercise voting rights on behalf of Digital Health Canada at the annual IMIA General Assembly, and will serve a two-year term on the IMIA Board as the Vice President North America.

New Toxicology Publication

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Congratulations to Kalli Hood and team on their new publication in Frontiers in Public Health! Kalli’s Master’s research found an association between a history of cancer and arsenic speciation/metallome exposure in the Atlantic PATH cohort. This work is part of our larger focus on environment and cancer, and establishing toenails as an important biomarker representing ~18 months of exposure. Kalli is now working on her PhD focused on drinking water quality in the Department of Civil and Resource Engineering at Dalhousie University.  

New Research Report — Current Management and Health Care use for People with Osteoarthritis

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Congratulations to Dr. Cheryl Kozey and team on their completed study and new report, Current Management and Health Care Use for People with Osteoarthritis. The team used existing data from Atlantic PATH to examine self-reported characteristics of people living with and without osteoarthritis in all three Maritime Provinces (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island).  The Atlantic PATH data for Nova Scotians was then linked to administrative data, accessed through Health Data Nova Scotia, in order to identify trends in health care use by Nova Scotians with and without osteoarthritis. A copy of the summary report can be found here: https://mssu.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/OA-Maritimes-Summary-Report_2023-02-10.pdf An infographic characterizing the the participants and findings can be found here: https://mssu.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/OA-Maritimes-Infographic.pdf

Nearing PhD Defense

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Congratulations to Jacob Nearing who successfully defended his PhD in Microbiology and Immunology at Dalhousie University!! Supervised by Dr. Morgan Langille, Jacob used biosamples from Atlantic PATH and Alberta’s Tomorrow Project in his work, “Identification of Robust Biomarkers Using Microbiome DNA Sequencing with a Focus on the Oral Microbiome and Cancer Associations.” Abstract The human microbiome can be defined as the community of microbes that live within and on the human body. Modern day microbiome research relies on the use of high throughput deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) sequencing to characterize and identify microbes and community structures associated with human disease. Indeed, the human microbiome has been proposed as a useful source of biomarkers for numerous human health conditions including cancer. Yet often, microbial biomarkers identified through DNA sequencing efforts are not reproducible between studies. Herein, I present my work on examining computation choices during microbiome experiments and applying this knowledge to identify novel associations with the salivary microbiome and breast, prostate, and colon cancer. Typical DNA sequenced based surveys of microbiomes, requires numerous choices to be made at each step of the experimental protocol. Often theses choices are unclear with no current gold standard within the field. Yet, these methods are used interchangeable within the literature without regard for how that choice might impact the biological conclusions that researchers find. To help address this issue I examined how choices made during two computational steps for processing DNA sequencing data impacted the biological conclusions drawn. In doing so I highlighted critical differences that can be attributed to bioinformatic tool choice and suggest potential solutions for these issues in the future. Using information from the above chapters, the second half of this thesis represents analysis done on salivary samples from a large population cohort to both characterized salivary microbiome variation and how that variation is associated with breast, prostate, and colon cancer. Within these chapters we show that several daily life factors are significantly associated with salivary microbiome composition, yet they only explain a small amount of total community variance. We also show that the salivary microbiome contains little signal in cases of breast and prostate cancer. Contrastingly our work did show potential salivary microbiome associations within cases of colon cancer. These findings show the potential for future diagnostic research into the relation between the oral microbiome and colon cancer development. Jacob’s publications and additional information about his research can be found here. Congratulations, Dr. Nearing!! We wish you all the best in the future and look forward to following your career.  

Canadian Cancer Society Accelerator Grants

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The Canadian Cancer Society’s Accelerator grants seek to accelerate the application of high-quality evidence addressing unmet, cancer-related needs (bit.ly/3B9DTj5). Congratulations to Dr. Robin Urquhart, Scientific Director of Atlantic PATH and Dr. Trevor Dummer, National Scientific Co-Director of CanPath on their successful Accelerator grants! Dr. Urquhart’s work will focus on adapting and implementing cancer patient pathways in Nova Scotia. The overarching aim is to implement and test evidence-based Cancer Patient Pathways as a coordinated approach to referral and early diagnosis is needed t oreduce delays and improve patient outcomes. Dr. Dummer’s work will focus on preventing cancer in the gender minority populations. While existing cancer prevention strategies address the needs of the majority population quite well, alternate strategies that account for the needs of marginalized communities who are often at an increased risk of cancer are lacking. This work will synthesize existing practice and is related to Dr. Dummer’s current CanPath project, “Primary Prevention of Cancer-Causing Substance Use in Gender Minority People of Canada” (https://canpath.ca/project/dummer-chan-2022/).

2022 Women Leaders in Digital Health

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Congratulations to our colleague, Dr. Samina Abidi who has been selected as one of nine Women Leaders in Digital Health 2022 by Digital Health Canada. Launched in 2017, this award recognizes visionaries who are harnessing the power of IT to transform Canadian health and healthcare. Dr. Abidi is an Associate Professor in the Department of Community Health and Epidemiology, Faculty of Medicine at Dalhousie University. She holds an MD, MSc in Information Technology and PhD in Health Informatics. Dr. Abidi is the co-Director of the NICHE (kNowledge Intensive Computing for Healthcare Enterprises) research group and has been involved with digital health academics, innovation, mentorship and advocacy for over 10 years. Her research interests span artificial intelligence, digital health and knowledge management. “… [G]iven the unique challenges and demands faced by the Canadian health system, we need not just dynamic clinical leaders but also a diversified community of thinkers and problem solvers who bring innovative solutions to address the gaps within the Canadian health system. In this regard, Dr. Abidi possesses excellent leadership, innovation, forward-thinking and interpersonal skills, coupled with sound academic acumen and experience that is helping to improve the Canadian health system.” https://digitalhealthcanada.com/news/2022-women-leader-samina-r-abidi/        

Prostate Cancer Awareness Month

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This #ProstateCancerAwarenessMonth, we’re sharing insights from recent studies from researchers across Canada. Today, we’re sharing findings from Sheida Majouni, PhD candidate from Dalhousie University! In 2022, Majouni and colleagues applied machine learning to arsenic species and metal profiles of toenails from Atlantic PATH. They aimed to understand environmental metal’s potential to produce disease, specifically prostate cancer: https://bit.ly/3eVjUMK “Artificial intelligence has a unique potential to revolutionize population health,” says Dr. Syed Sibte Raza Abidi, Professor in the Faculty of Computer Science at Dalhousie University. “By discovering environmental risk factors’ influence on chronic disease risk with risk prediction models, it is a pivotal tool for mitigating the risk of chronic disease onset.” This work is being expanded with the support of a New Frontiers in Research Fund (NFRF) Exploration grant. Team members include Dr. Syed Sibte Raza Abidi (Nominated Principal Investigator), Dr. Jong Sung Kim (Co-Principal Investigator), Dr. Ellen Sweeney (Co-Investigator), Dr. Gabriela Ilie (Co-Investigator), Dr. Trevor Dummer (Co-Investigator), Dr. Taehyun Roh (Collaborator), Dr. Nathalie Saint-Jacques (Collaborator), and Jason Hicks (Collaborator). Watch this space for future findings!

Funding News

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Congratulations to Dr. Samina Abidi, Dr. Raza Abidi, Dr. Ellen Sweeney and team on their successful CIHR Catalyst grant, “Digital Health and Artificial Intelligence based Platform for Early Chronic Disease Risk Assessment and Prediction to Improve Population Health.”  This project will leverage digital health/e-health and artificial intelligence technologies to develop a Personalized Risk Investigation, Stratification and Mitigation (PRISM) platform to assess chronic disease risk. “

Congratulations to Drs. Syed Sibte Raza Abidi, Jong Sung Kim, Ellen Sweeney, Gabriela Ilie, and Trevor Dummer on a successful New Frontiers in Research Fund’s Exploration grant.

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The highly competitive funding is meant to support high-risk, high-reward and interdisciplinary research. The NFRF funding is “especially meaningful because it encourages our scholars to push the boundaries of knowledge. This is how great discoveries are made,” says Alice Aiken, Vice-President, Research and Innovation. “It’s exciting to see our researchers harnessing machine learning, natural language processing and other cutting-edge techniques to reveal new truths that can improve our health and society.” (Source: DalNews, https://bit.ly/3O8Agi7). Using Atlantic PATH data and toenail samples, this funding will allow the research team to expand on their work on arsenic-related cancer and machine learning. Based on Canada’s geology, arsenic represents one of the most prevalent environmental carcinogens linked to skin, bladder, kidney, prostate, lung, breast, and cervical cancer. Half of Canadians are susceptible to develop cancer in their lifetime, with risk modified heavily by genetic susceptibility, behavioural factors and environmental exposure. While cancer risk prevention strategies have extensively focused on physiological and behavioural factors, environmental exposure as a cancer risk has not been well studied which has led to missed opportunities to reduce the risk of cancer through environmental population health programs, such as reducing chronic arsenic exposure by treating contaminated groundwater currently consumed by Canadians. Increased arsenic levels in human toenails have been detected in the Atlantic PATH cohort. Innovative population health interventions, focusing on predicting the susceptibility and type of arsenic induced cancer across Canada are urgently needed to mitigate the increasing prevalence of cancers in Canada. This work will investigate environmental cancer biomarkers and develop innovative data-driven environmental cancer risk assessment tools to help reduce the incidence of cancers caused by arsenic exposure. Please stay tuned for updates from this project!

New Publication! Toenail speciation biomarkers in arsenic‐related disease: a feasibility study for investigating the association between arsenic exposure and chronic disease

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Congratulations to Nathan Smith & colleagues!! Based on his MSc research, this is important foundational work examining toenails as biomarkers for arsenic speciation that Atlantic PATH and the HERC Lab continue to build on. https://bit.ly/332UU0r