Pathology Dynamics

My Farewell Letter – Matthew Maker

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I have recently left the Pathology Dynamics lab at Georgia Tech to pursue a MS degree in Biomedical Engineering at Columbia University. While I begin this new journey in one of the most famous cities on the planet, I continue to look back in appreciation of the people who helped get me here. My developed talents and skills that I have obtained over the last year are thanks to the amazing mentor-ship of this lab’s PI, Dr. Cassie Mitchell. She believes in pushing those in her lab to meet the potential she sees in them. My gratitude does not stop here, as it was also the amazing members of this lab that helped provide such amazing support to each other whenever there was a problem we needed help with. To everyone, I say thank you. With me gone, a new voice must now take over the website and the wonderful news that this lab produces, though I am sure whoever does will outdo my clumsy sentences and posts. Good luck to everyone in the Pathology Dynamics lab, I look forward to seeing what amazing research you all continue to produce.

REU Member: Darius Leftwich

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A 21 year-old senior at the University of Maryland-Baltimore, Darius has joined our lab through Georgia Tech’s SURE (Summer Undergraduate Research Experience) program. He has been tasked with developing and optimizing a database tool for Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML) to aid in all future approaches to research on this illness. Back at the University of Maryland, Darius spends his free time hiking, analyzing movies and listening to R&B, particularly Anderson Paak. He has already aided the lab tremendously with his work as well as kept us laughing with his humor.

REU Member: James Kim

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A 20 year-old Junior from the University of Missouri, James has joined our lab for the summer through Emory’s PERSE (Pediatric Engineering Research Summer Experience) program. He has been tasked with utilizing SEM-NET, a text mining tool developed by our lab, to find correlations with cardiovascular data, and use that information to better determine the direction of future research in this area. Back at Missouri, James plays tennis for their club team, volunteers as a tutor for high school students, jams on the ukulele and paints. He is an extremely talented young student with a bright future, and our lab is lucky to have him.

Jayant Prakash Gives an Oral Presentation at the Machine Learning in Science and Engineering Symposium

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During the 2019 Annual Data Science Forum, Jayant was given the honor of presenting his research as a speaker for the Machine Learning in Science and Engineering Symposium (MLSE). He talked about his use of machine learning to improve diagnostics of Alzheimer’s Disease and how the promising results could have a huge impact on medicine’s approach to this form of dementia. This lab is proud of Jayant’s success thus far and looks forward to all future accomplishments he will achieve.

Shout Out to Our PI, Dr. Cassie Mitchell, for Being Selected as a 2019 Diversity and Inclusion Fellow

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Dr. Cassie Mitchell is the head of the Pathology Dynamics lab as well as a wheelchair-bound quadriplegic. However, her disabilities have never stopped nor even slowed her down. On top of exploring future possibilities for the direction of predictive medicine, she has also dedicated her time to ensuring the disabled portion of the Georgia Tech community have the necessary resources available to them. This lab is beyond proud to see her selected as a 2019 Diversity and Inclusion (DI) Fellow at Georgia Tech and believe she is well deserving of the title. To read more about Dr. Mitchell and this appointment, please click on the link below:

https://www.bme.gatech.edu/bme/cassie-mitchell-selected-2019-diversity-and-inclusion-fellow

Premi Gives Back as a Newly Named Undergraduate Research Ambassador

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The Undergraduate Research Ambassadors (URA) are a dedicated group of students who help their peers find opportunities to gain experience. Premi Mohanavelu has chosen to join their ranks to help give back to those looking for the same chances that were once allotted to her. She is an integral member of our team and as a computer science major has helped the Pathology Dynamics lab build our CML database. We are proud Premi has chosen to become a URA and help those achieve the same things she has.

National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Awarded to Breanna Lee!

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The prestigious National Science Foundation, or NSF, Fellowship has been awarded to our lab’s talented Ph.D. student, Breanna Lee. She achieved this with her proposed project to examine using sparse data/ML techniques to better predict rare pediatric diseases where clinical trials and data are lacking. This lab is very excited for Breanna as this is her third fellowship awarded, making her one of the most decorated Ph.D. students in BME. This is Breanna’s first year at GT-Emory, but she is already making waves. Our lab is anxious to see the amazing things she does next.

PURA Awarded to One of Our Own, Albert Lee

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Albert Lee, one of the many talented students in our lab, has been awarded the President’s Undergraduate Research Award (PURA) salary fellowship for Summer 2019. This is a prestigious honor that has been hard earned through Albert’s work using an optimized form of dynamic meta-analysis to better inform preclinical ALS and neurological disease etiological assessment and potential therapy identification. The Pathology Dynamics lab has been lucky to have Albert be a part of our team for a couple of years now, building a resume that includes conferences and journal co-authorships.

Emory ADRC Pilot Grant Awarded on Alzheimer’s Disease

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The Laboratory for Pathology Dynamics is grateful to be awarded a 1-year pilot grant from the Emory Alzheimer’s Disease Research Consortium (ADRC) entitled, “Towards network models to differentiate Alzheimer’s from normative aging.” Dr. Mitchell is the PI of this research project, which focuses on the complex data aggregation and integration necessary for future predictive algorithms capable of differentiating cognitive decline due to normative aging from cognitive decline due to pathological Alzheimer’s Disease. As part of this pilot, the lab will be aggregating multiple complex clinical data sets, performing proof-of-concept machine learning prediction on aggregated clinical data, and using novel literature mining software to help prioritize predictive or distinguishing metrics from the published Alzheimer’s and aging literature. The lab will collaborate with clinicians at the Emory ADRC to help prioritize clinical insight and optimize clinical data platforms.

NIH-NCI Grant Awarded on BCR ABL Leukemias

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The Laboratory for Pathology Dynamics was recently awarded a 2-year National Institute of Health and National Cancer Institute (NIH-NCI) R21 grant entitled, “A Big Data Approach to BCR ABL Leukemias”. Dr. Mitchell is the PI of this research project, which will utilize a plethora of existing and novel big data analytics techniques, from computational modeling to text mining to machine learning, to improve personalized medicine for BCR ABL leukemias. While the advent of tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) has vastly improved life span for BCR ABL cancer patients, such chemotherapy is currently recommended to be taken for life, as even patients who reach remission have >60% chance of relapse if they stop treatment. With such long-term treatment, therapy resistance is an issue. There are a variety of TKIs, all of which have their own unique acute or chronic side effect profiles, which also influence safety and compliance. The goal of this work is to uncover complex patterns that improve understanding of the etiology and treatment of BCR ABL cancers and lead to predictive medicine algorithms that can personalize treatment and improve TKI selection, long-term outcomes, and overall quality of life. The lab will collaborate with oncologists specializing in pediatric and adult hematological malignancies.