(Press-News.org) A five-year, $6.4 million grant to develop an integrated, multiscale artificial intelligence (AI) approach to study genetic factors associated with Alzheimer’s disease has been awarded to UTHealth Houston by the National Institute on Aging, part of the National Institutes of Health.
A team led by Zhongming Zhao, PhD, and Xiaoqian Jiang, PhD, principal investigators and professors at McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics at UTHealth Houston, are developing a deep-learning AI system to link brain imaging with cell-specific genetic factors to better understand the genetic architecture of Alzheimer’s disease and cognitive decline.
“This project will fill in the gap in Alzheimer’s disease research between neuroimaging and genetic studies,” said Zhao, chair and director of the Center for Precision Health at McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics. “There are numerous computational analytical approaches that have been published in each field, but few can better address the link between neuroimaging and genetic data for a deep understanding of the disease.”
Zhao says a large amount of molecular neuroimaging biomarker and clinical data is already generated in information systems in the context of Alzheimer’s disease, but a wide range of causal factors have not always been connected.
To bridge this gap, researchers will group genetic and functional data using highly advanced machine-learning technology and an AI multimodality approach to characterize the genetic risk of Alzheimer’s disease.
“It is a very promising method to study. Because this is a neurodegenerative disease, we are calling it a deep-learning brain that will focus on brain reading,” said Jiang, chair of the Department of Health Data Science and Artificial Intelligence at the school. “After we develop the deep brain computational AI model, we will extend it to the single-cell level, which will be called the single-cell deep brain. This is a more powerful way to dissect the genetic components in Alzheimer’s disease.”
Researchers will address the cognitive decline of Alzheimer disease by integrating neuroimaging data into the deep-learning system. At this level, they will pair distinguished imaging features to the genomic data to visualize their commonalities.
To validate their AI models, they will use the neuroimaging and genetic data generated from Rush University Medical Center, led by Christopher Gaiteri, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Neurosciences. In addition, they will join the national Alzheimer’s Disease Sequencing Project AI/Machine Learning Consortium.
“The idea is to find where the genes and neuroimages link to combine them into neuroimaging genetics, which will help explain the causation of cognitive decline from the disease. Understanding this can help researchers and patients find better treatment options for Alzheimer’s disease,” Zhao said.
Co-investigators on the study are Paul Schulz, MD, professor in the Department of Neurology with McGovern Medical School; and Kai Zhang, PhD; Yejin Kim, PhD; Yulin Dai, PhD; and Xiangning Chen, PhD, with McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics. This research is funded by NIH grant U01AG079847.
Media Inquiries: 713-500-3030
END
McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics researchers awarded $6.4M NIH grant to develop deep learning model systems to understand mechanisms of Alzheimer’s disease
2023-10-18
[Attachments] See images for this press release:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
SwRI’s Dr. Alan Stern will conduct research and experiment training in space aboard Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity this November
2023-10-18
SAN ANTONIO — October 18, 2023 —On November 2, Dr. Alan Stern, planetary scientist and associate vice president of Southwest Research Institute’s Space Science Division, will fly aboard the Virgin Galactic commercial spaceship VSS Unity on a suborbital space mission to train for a future NASA-funded Virgin Galactic suborbital flight in which he will perform two NASA experiments in space.
“When I was a kid, human spaceflight was only available to NASA astronauts and Russian cosmonauts. Now that’s changing, and SwRI is pioneering a new era of space research being conducted in space, by space scientists,” Stern ...
More is not better: Trial finds giving more antibiotics to prevent joint replacement infections doesn't help
2023-10-18
Knee and hip replacements are increasing globally due to an ageing population. In the United States, the number of patients needing a joint replacement will exceed 2.7 million in the next 7 years. Post-surgery infections, while rare at 1-5% of patients, result in high patient morbidity and mortality.
In the United States the annual national hospital costs for treating infection are projected to exceed $1.85 billion.
We currently use an antibiotic, cefazolin, at the time of surgery to prevent infection. But with the rise of antibiotic resistant bacteria, experts ...
Promising new options for treating aggressive prostate cancer
2023-10-18
Cedars-Sinai Cancer investigators have identified two promising new treatment options for men with recurrent prostate cancer—both of which helped patients live longer without their disease progressing than the current standard treatment. The results of their international Phase III clinical trial were published today in the New England Journal of Medicine.
“If these treatments are approved by the Food and Drug Administration, our results will be practice changing,” said Stephen Freedland, MD, associate director for Training and Education and the Warschaw, Robertson, ...
Liverpool chemist presented with 2023 Eni Energy Frontiers Award by President of Italy
2023-10-18
Professor Matt Rosseinsky, from the University of Liverpool’s Department of Chemistry and Materials Innovation Factory, was presented with the 2023 Eni Energy Frontiers Award by Sergio Mattarella, the President of the Republic of Italy, at a ceremony in Rome this week.
Professor Rosseinsky received the prestigious Eni Award for the digital design and discovery of next-generation energy materials.
The presentation ceremony took place at the Palazzo del Quirinale in Rome which was also attended by Giuseppe Zafarana, Chairman of Eni and Claudio Descalzi, CEO of Eni.
Professor Rosseinsky said: “It was a great honour to be presented with this award by the President ...
Study focusing on Black cancer survivors documents how exposure to racial discrimination impacts care
2023-10-18
The medical community has understood for some time that experiences with discrimination are bad for the health of people from underserved racial or ethnic groups — populations burdened with worse health outcomes than white patients for conditions including many cancers. The effects of chronic stress on the body have been considered one chief culprit.
Now, a research team from the Keck School of Medicine of USC and USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, supported in part by the National Institutes of Health, has added new knowledge about how Black patients in particular are impacted by exposure to discrimination in the course of cancer care. Through interviews ...
Choosing exoskeleton settings like a Pandora radio station
2023-10-18
Images // Video
Taking inspiration from music streaming services, a team of engineers at the University of Michigan, Google and Georgia Tech has designed the simplest way for users to program their own exoskeleton assistance settings.
Of course, what's simple for the users is more complex underneath, as a machine learning algorithm repeatedly offers pairs of assistance profiles that are most likely to be comfortable for the wearer. The user then selects one of these two, and the predictor offers another ...
School discipline referrals for substance use increased in Oregon middle schools after legalization of recreational marijuana
2023-10-18
School Discipline Referrals for Substance Use Increased in Oregon Middle Schools after Legalization of Recreational Marijuana
A recent study found that Oregon middle school students received office discipline referrals (ODRs) for substance use offenses 30% more often after legalization of recreational marijuana relative to comparison schools in other states over the same period (school years 2012/2013 – 2018/2019). There were no statistically discernable changes in high school ODRs. Recreational use by adults was legalized in Oregon in 2015.
Researchers examined the extent to which legalization of recreational marijuana ...
UMass Amherst engineering professor is awarded $1.9 million to push the bounds of cancer, heart disease research
2023-10-18
UMass Amherst Engineering Professor Is Awarded $1.9 Million to Push the Bounds of Cancer, Heart Disease Research
Jinglei Ping will explore a new method of controlling cell communication by electronically regulating exosome traffic through the National Institutes of Health grant
AMHERST, Mass. — The human body is a sophisticated organism that has complex internal communication systems down to a cellular level. However, these systems transmit more than just messages about healthy human functions; they can also influence disease.
Consider cancer. Jinglei Ping poses the question: “How do unhealthy cells transport their own cancer ...
American Society of Anesthesiologists names Ronald L. Harter, M.D., FASA, new president
2023-10-18
SAN FRANCISCO — Ronald L. Harter, M.D., FASA, professor of anesthesiology in the Department of Anesthesiology at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus, was today named president of the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA), the nation’s largest organization of physician anesthesiologists. Dr. Harter assumed office at the ANESTHESIOLOGY® 2023 annual meeting and will serve for one year.
“ASA is the premier educational, research and scientific organization representing anesthesiology in the U.S., and I’m honored to have this opportunity to advance ...
Study finds increased risk of Guillain-Barré after COVID-19 infection
2023-10-18
EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2023
MINNEAPOLIS – Having a COVID-19 infection is associated with an increased risk of developing the rare disorder called Guillain-Barré syndrome within the next six weeks, according to a study published in the October 18, 2023, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study also found that people who received the mRNA vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech were less likely to develop the ...