Category: news

On Friday 18 February 2022, the Accademia di Medicina di Torino hosted a scientific meeting entitled Big data in transactional neuroscience. The meeting was introduced by Adriano Chiò, Head of the ALS Center of the University of Turin and member of the Academy. Our PI, Prof. Barbara Di Camillo, held a lecture on how the use of big data and Artificial Intelligence may impact in healthcare and, more specifically, in Translational Neuroscience.

ABSTRACT: In recent years we are facing a change in the socio-economic health models based on data. This is the result of the increase in the volume, speed, and variety of data collected in the healthcare sector, combined with the development of Artificial Intelligence and Information Technologies. However, the effective use of this data to address the challenges in understanding and treating human health problems has yet to show its full potential. The barriers that limit the impact and practical application of Artificial Intelligence in the healthcare sector are diverse. In addition to the volume characterizing “Big Data”, their heterogeneity, complexity, variability, together with their often dynamic nature pose a number of technical and methodological challenges. Moreover, the management of the data and the interpretation of the results raise new questions related to ethical aspects, and indicate a need to change the organizational model of health management. This lecture will illustrate some basic concepts of Artificial Intelligence, discussing through some practical examples potential, challenges, and limits of its use in the medical field.

You can find the recording here (in italian only)

The 2nd Process Mining for Healthcare (PM4HC) Workshop that our Post-doc Erica Tavazzi organized together with Roberto Gatta, Lucia Sacchi, and Arianna Dagliati from the Universities of Brescia and Pavia took place yesterday.
It was a great occasion to explore the work in progress in a number of Italian institutions where new methodologies and useful applications are shedding a light on the processes happening in healthcare. Our group also had the pleasure to present our recent research on the investigation of the effectiveness of a data-driven approach to statistical analysis and its applications to Melanoma and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.
A big thank you goes to SIBIM – Italian Scientific Society of Biomedical Informatics – for sponsoring this nice event, to the University of Brescia for generously hosting the workshop, and to all the onsite and online participants for their impressive contributions and the very fruitful open discussion!

• “Uncover a microbiota signature of upper respiratory tract in patients with SARS-CoV-2+” (Cappellato M, Longhin F, Del Vecchio C, Brancaccio G, Bellato M, Cattelan AM, Brun P, Salaris C, Castagliuolo I, Di Camillo B)
• “Comprehensive assessment of microbiome differential abundance tools” (Cappellato M, Baruzzo G and Di Camillo B)
• “Analyze cellular communication from single cell RNA sequencing data with scSeqComm” (Baruzzo G, Cesaro G, Di Camillo B)
• “Engineering of a dCas9 feedback regulator to neutralize competition effects in CRISPRi-based genetic circuits” (Bellato M, Huang HH, Qian Y, Cardenas P, Pasotti L, Magni P, Del Vecchio D)

For more details, check the conference website: https://www.bbcc-meetings.it/

• “Identifying extreme behaviours in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis patients at diagnosis through Archetypal Analysis” (Trescato I, Tavazzi E, Vettoretti M, Vasta S, Chiò A, Di Camillo B).
• “Inspecting Progression Trajectories in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis using Process Mining” (Tavazzi E, Gatta R, Vallati M, Cotti Piccinelli S, Filosto M, Castellano M, Di Camillo B).
• “Linear regression modelling to assess the impact of socio-economic, demographic and health-related variables on wellbeing in the elderly population” (Trescato I, Roversi C, Vettoretti M, Di Camillo B, Facchinetti A). 

For more details, check the conference website: http://www.isa.cnr.it/cibb2021/

A great day at Villa Bolasco in Castelfranco for the “Workshop on Research and Education in Computer Engineering”. Professors, Post-docs and PhD students of Computer Engineering at the Department of Information Engineering, University of Padova, joined for a day dedicated to ongoing research activities and upcoming teaching and research priorities. Our Post-docs have also contributed with:
– “Single Cell RNA Sequencing Bioinformatics” (Giacomo Baruzzo)
– “Biological Logic gates: Towards Biocomputing via Synthetic Biology” (Massimo Bellato)
– “Predictive analytics as the enabling factor for the pursuit of healthcare goals” (Enrico Longato)
Special thanks to the organizers for making it possible (finally in presence!)

It is our pleasure to announce the special session Artificial Intelligence and Statistical Methods for Neurodegenerative Diseases at the 17th International Conference on Computational Intelligence Methods for Bioinformatics and Biostatistics (CIBB 2021).
Conference dates: 15-17 November 2021
Location: virtual
Submission format: short paper (4-6 pages)
Deadline: 15 September 2021
The authors of all the accepted short papers will be invited to submit an extended version of their manuscript for the conference proceedings book in Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) or for a journal supplement in BMC Bioinformatics or BMC Medical Informatics.
Topics of interest span machine learning, medical statistics, artificial intelligence, and all advanced computational methods applied to clinical, lifestyle, and -omics data in the field of neurodegenerative diseases.
The session will host, as an invited speaker, Prof. Sara Madeira (Universidade de Lisboa), a leading expert in machine learning applied to neurodegenerative diseases.
Please find the call for papers and all the submission details on the conference website http://www.isa.cnr.it/cibb2021/.
We look forward to seeing you at the conference!

The special session organizers
Erica Tavazzi, Martina Vettoretti, Enrico Longato
Department of Information Engineering, University of Padova, Padova, Italy