The Big Data in Biomedicine conference kicks off at Stanford this week. The event, which will be held at the School of Medicine’s Li Ka Shing Center for Learning and Knowledge, is bringing together leading figures from academia, industry, government and philanthropic foundations to discuss the burgeoning opportunities for mining the vast amounts of biomedical data housed in public databases. Here’s a look at the schedule.

For those unable to attend the conference in person, the event will be webcasted via the Big Data in Biomedicine website. Throughout the three-day event, we’ll also be live tweeting the keynote talks from Anne Wojcicki, CEO and co-founder of personal-genetics company 23andMe, and David Ewing Duncan, author of Experimental Man, as well as other proceedings from the conference. You can follow the tweets on the @SUMedicine feed or by using the hashtag #bigdatamed.

Previously: Obama’s new open-data policy aims to boost access to federal data for entrepreneurs, researchers, Stanford computer scientist shows stem cell researchers the power of big data, Atul Butte discusses why big data is a big deal in biomedicine and Stanford and Oxford team up for conference on “big data’s” role in biomedicine
Photo by Wellcome Images

This spectacular image was taken by Indiana University research associate Jane Stout and depicts a scene from mitosis where chromosomes (highlighted in blue) are pulled apart by hook-like kinetochores (shown in green) and spindle fibers (marked in red). The photo took first place in the microscopy category of the most recent GE Healthcare Life Sciences Cell Imaging Competition and was featured on an electronic billboard in Times Square last month.

Stout explained in an Indiana University news story the significance of the photo:

This particular high-resolution image allowed us to see individual strands within bundles of specialized structures that form the spindle, whereas before we could only infer the bundled structure from other types of imaging and assays… In future images, we hope to see where the different members of the protein family act on the spindle to learn how their movements are coordinated to regulate the entire process of DNA segregation.

Photo by Indiana University

The five most-read stories on Scope this week were:

A full workout in just seven minutes? Science says so!: Don’t have time to hit the gym? Try this high-intensity, seven-minute workout. As a past Well blog piece explains, findings published in the latest issue of the American College of Sports Medicine’s Health & Fitness Journal show that it’s a quick and effective way to keep in shape.

The mystery surrounding lung-transplant survival rates: An October article in the San Francisco Chronicle offered a look at the challenges facing lung transplant patients and explored why a significant number don’t live beyond the five-year mark, despite improvements in survival rates.

Ask Stanford Med: Director of Stanford Autism Center taking questions on research and treatment: For this month’s Ask Stanford Med installment, Carl Feinstein, MD, director of the Stanford Autism Center at Packard Children’s Hospital, took questions related to autism spectrum disorder. Feinstein will respond to a selection of the questions in a future Scope Q&A.

Emmy nod for film about Stanford brain tumor research – and the little boy who made it possible: “Dylan’s Gift,” a documentary detailing how one family’s generosity is advancing research on a little-understood childhood cancer, has been nominated for an Emmy. The film, which was inspired by a 2009 Stanford Medicine story, explores the work of Stanford physician-scientist Michelle Monje, MD, PhD, who cares for pediatric brain cancer patients and conducts research on a rare, vicious brain tumor that arises in school-aged children.

Distinction with a difference: Transgender neurobiologist picked for National Academy of Science membership: The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) recently conferred membership to three Stanford scientists, including Ben Barres, MD, PhD. Chair of Stanford’s neurobiology department, Barres is believed to be the first transgender scientist admitted to NAS.

In this short animation, John Hengeveld, marketing director for high performance computing at Intel, shares his story of undergoing an appendectomy and learning that, as a result of a burst appendix, a rare and cancer-causing material was now circulating in his body. Currently, there are few good treatment options for his condition, but Hengeveld hopes that by harnessing computers to perform scientific research this could change. Watch the video to learn how computers can help researchers accelerate the scientific process by simulating biomedical experiments to develop new methods of fighting disease.

Previously: Obama’s new open-data policy aims to boost access to federal data for entrepreneurs, researchers and Stanford computer scientist shows stem cell researchers the power of big data

This fall, innovative thinkers engaged in using social media and mobile computing applications to improve health-care delivery and advance the practice of medicine will meet Sept. 27-29 the School of Medicine for the Stanford Medicine X conference. Registration for the three-day event is now open.

The conference will be held at the Li Ka Shing Center for Learning & Knowledge and feature presentations and panels covering a variety of topics, including patient-centered design, participatory medicine, crowd funding for health projects and the impact of information technology on biomedical research. More details on the conference program from our release:

Delivering the opening keynote at the conference is Maryland high school student Jack Andraka, winner of the 2012 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair and the Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award. Andraka invented a novel paper sensor that detects pancreatic, ovarian and lung cancers in five minutes and costs a mere 3 cents.

Also delivering a keynote speech is John Sculley, former president of PepsiCo and past CEO of Apple Inc. One of America’s best-known business leaders, Sculley is a vocal advocate for health innovation and mentor to an elite group of health-care entrepreneurs.

New to this year’s conference is the Medicine X Master Class program, a series of small-venue seminars taught by experts in specific disciplines. Confirmed master-class speakers include Roni Zeiger, CEO of Smart Patients; Susannah Fox, an associate director of the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project; Sonny Vu, CEO of Misfit Wearables; Bertalan Meskó, MD, founder of Webicina; Wendy Sue Swanson, MD, pediatrician and author of the Seattle Mama Doc blog; Bryan Vartabedian, MD, assistant professor of pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine; and patient advocate and artist Regina Holliday.

The early registration deadline is June 15 and space is limited. To register, visit the Medicine X website.

More news about Stanford Medicine X is available in the Medicine X category.

Photo by Stanford Medicine X

Over on the Stanford Initiative to Cure Hearing Loss blog, Nat Lauzon, a voiceover artist and radio DJ, shares her personal story of living with hearing loss. Lauzon began having difficulty hearing at the age of 15, but didn’t let the condition stop her from forging out a career in industries that rely heavily on hearing. Earlier this year, she read about Stanford researchers identifying a class of cells called tympanic border cells that can give rise to hair cells and the cells that support them during a phase of cochlear maturation right after birth.

The findings inspired her to become a supporter of the Stanford Initiative to Cure Hearing Loss and gave her hope that the research may lead to discoveries that could one day help the millions of Americans suffering from hearing loss due to damaged or impaired sensory hair cells. She writes:

I was amazed, appreciative, inspired.  A cure for hearing loss is a potentiality that is actually within the reach of science! This is huge! I  immediately donated and sent along a note of thanks, explaining my personal situation and why a cure would mean so much to me.  It’s actually how this blog post came to fruition.

For me, a cure would mean the ability to continue my passion in life. To not worry about what’s around the corner for me or what the audiogram will say in another 10 years’ time. But honestly, the bigger picture is just as meaningful to me. To know the lives of millions of people – from babies to toddlers to adults -with profound hearing loss and deafness would be forever changed? I consider that, not only a marvel but a miracle of science.

…

My hope is that I can help be part of a larger picture of optimism and awareness:  not only for hearing health in the radio profession, but also to help tear away the general stigma of hearing loss as merely an “old people” affliction. And, along with that – draw support for the incredible and groundbreaking work that is being done by Stanford to find a cure.

Previously: “What’s that?” Stanford researchers identify cells important to hearing loss, Regenerating sensory hair cells to restore hearing to noise-damaged ears, Stanford researcher comments on the use of human embryonic stem cells to restore hearing and Growing new inner-ear cells: a step toward a cure for deafness
Photo by cursedthing

Today is the final day of our Ask Stanford Med installment on autism. Questions related to treatment, diagnosis and research advancements can be submitted to Carl Feinstein, MD, director of the Stanford Autism Center at Packard Children’s Hospital, by either sending a tweet that includes the hashtag #AskSUMed or posting your question in the comments section of our previous entry. We’ll accept questions until 5 p.m. Pacific time.

And, as a reminder, Feinstein and others will be speaking next month at a day-long event geared towards parents, teachers, physicians and caregivers. The sixth annual Autism Spectrum Disorders Update will be held at the Stanford campus on June 1.

Beyond providing a much needed escape for children battling cancer, video games can also be used to empower and educate them during chemotherapy and other therapies. As explained in a recent post on Observations, a team of medical researchers and software programmers at HopeLab created a collection of free, online games to help kids understand what’s happening inside their bodies during treatment, cope with unpleasant side effects and reinvigorate them so they have the strength to fight the disease.

HopeLab says that by playing the games, called Remission and Remission 2, pediatric cancer patients are more likely to adhere to their medication schedule, and the nonprofit recently partnered with Stanford researchers to study this potential benefit. Larry Greenemeier writes:

In the most recent study, HopeLab worked with Stanford University associate professor of psychology and neuroscience Brian Knutson on a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study analyzing brain regions activated when people play the original Re-Mission. The paper, published in the March 2012 PLoS ONE, compared brain scans in 57 cancer-free undergraduates who were randomly assigned to actively play Re-Mission or passively watch the game. Re-Mission players experienced more activity in neural circuits associated with incentive motivation when compared to those who merely observed game play. Such reward-related activation could shift attitudes and emotions and boost players’ adherence to prescribed chemotherapy and antibiotic treatments to fight infection, the researchers said, although they acknowledge that further tests are needed on actual cancer patients before they can read too much into the results.

The above video describes the game and offers firsthand experiences from patients.

Previously: Improving patients’ lives through video games and Collaborative project creates a virtual world for cancer patients

Tiny, bendable biosensors hold the promise of allowing health-care providers to track patients’ vital signs without them having to be tethered to bulky machines. But the difficulty of squeezing sophisticated circuitry onto surfaces no wider than a postage stamp makes designing such devices especially tricky.

To overcome this challenge, Zhenan Bao, PhD, a professor of chemical engineering at Stanford, and colleagues combined layers of flexible materials into pressure sensors to create a small skin-like heart monitor that can be attached to the wrist with a regular-sized adhesive bandage. A Stanford news release offers more details about the device and its potential uses in health care:

When the sensor is placed on someone’s wrist using an adhesive bandage, the sensor can measure that person’s pulse wave as it reverberates through the body.

The device is so sensitive that it can detect more than just the two peaks of a pulse wave. When engineers looked at the wave drawn by their device, they noticed small bumps in the tail of the pulse wave invisible to conventional sensors. Bao said she believes these fluctuations could potentially be used for more detailed diagnostics in the future.

Doctors already use similar, albeit much bulkier, sensors to keep track of a patient’s heart health during surgery or when taking a new medication. But in the future Bao’s device could help keep track of another vital sign.

“In theory, this kind of sensor can be used to measure blood pressure,” said [Gregor Schwartz, a post-doctoral fellow and a physicist for the project]. “Once you have it calibrated, you can use the signal of your pulse to calculate your blood pressure.”

This non-invasive method of monitoring heart health could replace devices inserted directly into an artery, called intravascular catheters. These catheters create a high risk of infection, making them impractical for newborns and high-risk patients. Thus, an external monitor like Bao’s could provide doctors a safer way to gather information about the heart, especially during infant surgeries.

The team’s work is described in paper published today in Nature Communications.

Previously: Touch-sensitive, self-healing synthetic skin could yield smarter prosthetics, Beetle wing design inspires ultra-sensitive electronic skin, Stanford researchers develop transparent, stretchable skin-like sensor and Stretchable solar cells could power electronic ‘super skin’
Photo in featured entry box by L.A. Cicero

Entrepreneurs and researchers will now have greater access to information generated and stored by the federal government thanks to an executive order recently issued by President Obama. In the above video, U.S. Chief Technology Officer Todd Park and U.S. Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel explain the importance of the new open-data policy and how it will promote innovation and economic growth while increasing government transparency and efficiency.

In addition to the release of the Open Data Policy, the White House announced several complementary actions, including:

• A new Data.Gov. In the months ahead, Data.gov, the powerful central hub for open government data, will launch new services that include improved visualization, mapping tools, better context to help locate and understand these data, and robust Application Programming Interface (API) access for developers.
• New open source tools to make data more open and accessible. The U.S. Chief Information Officer and the U.S. Chief Technology Officer are releasing free, open source tools on Github, a site that allows communities of developers to collaboratively develop solutions. This effort, known as Project Open Data, can accelerate the adoption of open data practices by providing plug-and-play tools and best practices to help agencies improve the management and release of open data. For example, one tool released today automatically converts simple spreadsheets and databases into APIs for easier consumption by developers. Anyone, from government agencies to private citizens to local governments and for-profit companies, can freely use and adapt these tools starting immediately.

The open-data policy, and its implications for the medical research community and health-care startups, will likely be a popular topic of discussion among attendees at the Big Data in Biomedicine conference being held at Stanford next week.

Previously: Stanford computer scientist shows stem cell researchers the power of big data, Atul Butte discusses why big data is a big deal in biomedicine, Stanford and Oxford team up for conference on “big data’s” role in biomedicine and Mathematical technique used to identify bladder cancer marker