Presentation given at Health Informatics and Knowledge Management conference (http://publichealth.curtin.edu.au/HIKM/), as part of Australasian Computer Science Week 2012. http://www.cs.rmit.edu.au/acsw2012/

1. “Knowledge Management in
Biomedical Translational
Research”
HIKM-ACW
HIKM ---- 1 Feb 2012
Fernando J. Martin-Sanchez
Professor and Chair of Health Informatics
Melbourne Medical School
Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry & Health Sciences
&
Director, Health and Biomedical Informatics Research (HBIR) Unit

2. Outline
• Biomedical translational research
• The role of knowledge management
• HBIR@UniMelb

3. Biomedical
Translational
Research

4. ---The ultimate goal of translational
medicine is the development of new
treatments and insights towards the
improvement of health across
populations.---
Woolf, SH. JAMA 2008

5. USA: 7 NCBC + 60 CTSA + 1 new NCATS
www.ScienceTranslationalMedicine.org
6 July 2011 Vol 3 Issue 90

6. Transdisciplinary paths – research teams
Bench (Bioscientist)
Facilitate
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
Translate basic research structured,
findings into clinical solutions standardized,
WHAT anonymized
clinical data
Bedside (Clinician) sets for
Evaluate the efficacy of research
Interventions across communities WHY
Population (Epidemiologist)
Assess impact on health policies
HOW
Society at large (Health services researcher)

7. Biomedical Informatics: Biomedical Information
processing from particle to population
Multilevel modeling, ontologies, data integration,
data mining, …
Altman RB, Balling R, Brinkley JF, Coiera E, Consorti F, Dhansay MA, Geissbuhler A, Hersh W, Kwankam SY, Lorenzi NM, Martin-Sanchez F, Mihalas GI,
Shahar Y, Takabayashi K, Wiederhold G. "Commentaries on Informatics and medicine: from molecules to populations". Methods Inf Med. 2008;47(4):296-317.

8. The role of
Knowledge
management

9. The role of knowledge management to
facilitate translational research
• Update researchers and clinicians on the latest developments
within relevant areas
• Data integration (putting into context molecular information
from the patient with existing biomedical knowledge on the
web)
• Assess the clinical relevance of biomarkers
• Supporting decision making through new clinical guidelines,
and alerting systems which take into account genetic data
from patients
• Education of patients and health professionals in genomics
and informatics

10. SPECTRUM OF BIOMEDICAL KNOWLEDGE IN INTERNET
Maths Physics Chemistry Biology Medicine Engineering ….
BIKMAS
SYSTEM RSS feeds
(Biomedical
Information
Knowledge
Management Archive of
Antena topics
System)‫‏‬
USES (several
formats and
applications)‫‏‏‬
Webs Courses ‫‏‬ News‫ ‏‬Scientific Documents
(White Paper, articles)‫‏‬

11. - Knowledge management - BIKMAS

12. Knowledge management
• Blogs
• Journals
• Podcasts
• Bookmarks
• News
• Slideshare
• Videos

13. Questions – Data integration
• What are the main features of the disease?
• Are there any drugs for the disease?
• Are there any gene therapies or clinical trials for the disease?
• What laboratories perform genetic tests for the disease?
• What genes cause the disease?
• On which chromosomes are these genes located?
• What mutations have been found in these genes?
• What names are used to refer to these genes?
• What are the proteins coded by these genes?
• What are the functions of the gene product?
• What is the 3D structure for these proteins?
• What are the enzymes associated to these proteins?

14. DiseaseCard
• DiseaseCard
• Collaboration with
University of Aveiro
• Integrates information
from 20 reference
databases
• 2000+ genetic
diseases
Dias GS, Oliveira JL, Vicente J, Martin-Sanchez F.
“Integrating medical and genomic data: a successful
example for rare diseases”. Stud. Health Technol. Inform.
2006;124:125-30.
http://www.diseasecard.org

19. Clinical relevance of biomarkers
- Biomarkercard

20. INTERNET
WEB MEDLINE
2.0 Imaging
• My NCBI
• Blogs • Pubmed
• Journals
• Podcasts
• Bookmarks
• News
• OMIM
• Genetests
Disease
• Uniprot
• dbSNP
• KEGG Biomarkers
• Enzyme
• PDB… Nano - Biotechnology
Knowledge Management
Biomedical
databases

21. Education - Genome Game

22. HBIR @
UniMelb

23. Model for the new Centre for HBIR
Academic
home
Funding
Agencies
(competitive
Grants)
Foundational Foundational
Contributing Contributing
member member
Support of specific activities Liaison with medical specialties

24. Research
• Three main areas:
– Informatics - personalized
medicine
– Informatics - simulation,
modeling and sensors
– Informatics – e-health
• All of them aim at:
– Improving health services
– Facilitating translational
research
– Contributing to professional
development

25. Education
• Health students and professionals,
Engineers & informaticians
• Experts in the field (Master, PhD in HBI)
• Undergrad – Bachelor of Biomed, Science
• Postgrad New MD – Across the
Curriculum
• MSc - Offer an elective subject: “eHealth
and Biomedical Informatics Systems”
– MSc Information Science, MSc
Bioinformatics, MSc Biomedical
Engineering, MSc Public Health, …
• 2nd Elective subject (eHealth and
Biomedical Informatics Methods)
• 4 subjects stream within an existing MSc
• Master and PhD degrees

26. Outreach
Collaborative Health Informatics Research Seminar & Social (CHIRSS)
Focus on the future of healthcare and new opportunities that are emerging for collaborative R&D in
Health and Biomedical Informatics.
Once a month.
CHIRSS is supported by the Institute for a Broadband Enabled Society and Victorian eResearch
Strategic Initiative
Partnerships
Journal club
A new Health and Biomedical Informatics journal club has started up, with a focus on strategies for
publishing health informatics research. We meet from 12.00 to 1.00 on the second Tuesday of
the month in the ICT Building, 111 Barry Street, level 4, room 9.
Bulletins
“Liaisons” with Clinical specialties
Web page
http://www.healthinformatics.unimelb.edu.au

28. Scoop.it

29. Netvibes

30. Paper.li

32. Thank you for your attention!
© Copyright The University of Melbourne 2012