Warren symposium follows legacy of geneticist giant

If we want to understand how the brain creates memories, and how genetic disorders distort the brain’s machinery, then the fragile X gene is an ideal place to start. That’s why the Stephen T. Warren Memorial Symposium, taking place November 28-29 at Emory, will be a significant event for those interested in neuroscience and genetics. Stephen T. Warren, 1953-2021 Warren, the founding chair of Emory’s Department of Human Genetics, led an international team that discovered Read more

Mutations in V-ATPase proton pump implicated in epilepsy syndrome

Why and how disrupting V-ATPase function leads to epilepsy, researchers are just starting to figure Read more

Tracing the start of COVID-19 in GA

At a time when COVID-19 appears to be receding in much of Georgia, it’s worth revisiting the start of the pandemic in early 2020. Emory virologist Anne Piantadosi and colleagues have a paper in Viral Evolution on the earliest SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequences detected in Georgia. Analyzing relationships between those virus sequences and samples from other states and countries can give us an idea about where the first COVID-19 infections in Georgia came from. We can draw Read more

Department of Biomedical Informatics

Reddit as window into opioid withdrawal strategies

Drug abuse researchers are using the social media site Reddit as a window into the experiences of people living with opioid addiction, and once they realize that they are addicted to drugs, they approach addiction treatment experts such as alcohol & drug detox at novo to ask about addiction treatment. Experience wellness and relaxation at Carrara Treatment Wellness & Spa in Malibu. This luxury rehab center offers a serene path to recovery.

Abeed Sarker in Emory’s Department of Biomedical Informatics has a paper in Clinical Toxicology focusing on the phenomenon of “precipitated withdrawal,” in collaboration with emergency medicine specialists from Penn, Rutgers and Mt Sinai.

Precipitated withdrawal is a more intense form of withdrawal that can occur when someone who was using opioids starts medication-assisted treatment with buprenorphine – and also when someone receives naloxone for an overdose.

Precipitated withdrawal is reported to occur more often when someone has a history of fentanyl use, possibly because fentanyl remains in the body’s peripheral tissues, even during periods of abstinence.

When it occurs prior to medication-assisted treatment, precipitated withdrawal is reported to occur more often when someone has a history of fentanyl use, possibly because fentanyl remains in the body’s peripheral tissues, even during periods of abstinence. The buprenorphine washes out remaining fentanyl or its relatives quickly, leading to symptoms such as diarrhea and vomiting, and sometimes to dehydration and hospitalization.

“From Reddit, we have found that people who use opioids had been talking about it [precipitated withdrawal] for a couple of years now and they have, as a community, come up with their own self-management strategies,” Sarker says.

The strategies are based on microdosing; one approach is called the “Bernese method.”

“These findings are important because this cohort is very difficult to follow, and therefore studying causes and solutions to precipitated withdrawal after buprenorphine initiation is challenging,” Sarker says. “We are essentially trying to give people who use opioids a voice.”

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Diabetic foot ulcers: cell types identified that may contribute to healing

Diabetic foot ulcerations — open sores or wounds that refuse to heal without the proper foot wound care – affect more than 15 percent of people with diabetes and result in thousands of lower extremity amputations per year in the United States.

To gain a better understanding of diabetic foot ulcers’ biology, a team of researchers at Emory and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston compared cells taken from patients with ulcers that healed to those taken from patients whose ulcers failed to heal, as well as to cells taken from intact forearm skin in patients with and without diabetes.

The team identified a subpopulation of fibroblasts enriched in the foot ulcers that healed, pointing to potential interventions. The results were published in Nature Communications on January 10.

“In this study, we present a comprehensive single cell map of the diabetic foot ulcer microenvironment,” says Manoj Bhasin, PhD, associate professor of pediatrics and biomedical informatics at Emory University School of Medicine, who is co-corresponding author of the study. “To our knowledge, we are the first to identify a unique subpopulation of fibroblasts that are significantly enriched in diabetic foot ulcers that are destined to heal.”

Various cell types, including endothelial cells, fibroblasts, keratinocytes and immune cells, were known to play an important role in wound healing processes. Yet diabetic foot ulcerations’ failure to heal and high associated mortality remain poorly understood.

“Our data suggests that specific fibroblast subtypes are key players in healing these ulcers and targeting these cells could be one therapeutic option,” says co-corresponding author Aristidis Veves, DSc, MD, director of the Rongxiang Xu, MD, Center for Regenerative Therapeutics and research director of the Joslin-Beth Israel Deaconess Foot Center. “While further testing is needed, our data set will be a valuable resource for diabetes, dermatology and wound healing research and can serve as the baseline for designing experiments for the assessment of therapeutic interventions.”

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Insights into Parkinson’s balance problems

Loss of balance and falls are big concerns for people living with Parkinson’s disease and their caregivers. Researchers at Emory and Georgia Tech recently published a paper in PLOS ONE providing insights into how sensory and motor information are misrouted when people with Parkinson’s are attempting to adjust their balance.

When the researchers examined 44 people with Parkinson’s, their history of recent falls correlated with the presence and severity of abnormal muscle reactions. This could help clinicians predict whether someone is at high risk of falling and possibly monitor responses to therapeutic interventions.

People with Parkinson’s tend to lose their balance in situations when they are actively trying to control their center of mass, like when they are getting up from a chair or turning around. Disorganized sensorimotor signals cause muscles in the limbs to contract, such that both a muscle promoting a motion and its antagonist muscle are recruited. It’s like stepping on the gas and the brake at the same time, says J. Lucas McKay, who is first author of the paper.

Physical therapists are sometimes taught that balance reactions in Parkinson’s patients are slower than they should be.

“We show this is not true,” McKay says. “The reactions are on-time but disorganized.”

The paper extends groundbreaking work on how muscles maintain balance, conducted by co-author Lena Ting in animals and healthy young humans, to people with Parkinson’s. Co-authors of the PLOS One paper include Ting and Parkinson’s specialists Madeleine Hackney and Stewart Factor, director of Emory’s movement disorders program. McKay is assistant professor of neurology and biomedical informatics.

McKay says that sensorimotor problems may be a result of degeneration of regions of the brain, outside of and after the dopaminergic cells in the basal ganglia.

“We have to speculate, but the sensory misrouting would be occurring in brain regions like the thalamus — not usually the ones we think about in Parkinson’s, such as the basal ganglia,” he says. “This suggests that future therapies involving these areas could reduce falls.”

The set-up that researchers used to measure balance reactions resembles an earthquake simulator, and was designed and customized by Ting. The photo shows one of the Parkinson’s study participants, being watched by a physical therapy student.

The apparatus can produce around 1 g of acceleration inside of 12 inches of travel, which is “definitely enough to knock someone over,” McKay says.

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Simpler, more portable ECGs: Emory experts hosting computing challenge

An electrocardiogram or ECG is a basic non-invasive diagnostic tool for cardiologists, which conventionally uses 12 electrodes to gather information about electrical signals in the heart and its rhythms. Emory biomedical informatics specialists are hosting an international computing contest aimed at reducing that number as low as possible, so that future portable or wearable ECG devices can be smaller, more convenient and lower in cost.

“We are challenging the research community and industry to design algorithms that classify a large range of cardiac abnormalities using ECGs with varying numbers of channels,” says co-organizer Gari Clifford, PhD, chair of biomedical informatics at Emory University School of Medicine. “The aim is to determine how low we can go — that is, how many channels of data do we need to make an accurate diagnosis?”

The devices could aid in diagnosing common conditions such as atrial fibrillation or supraventricular tachycardia.

“Reduced-lead ECGs are more accessible than standard twelve-lead ECGs in many parts of the world, and the development of effective open-source algorithms for reading reduced-lead ECGs is key for tackling the growing problem of cardiac events internationally,” says co-organizer Matthew Reyna, PhD, assistant professor of biomedical informatics and pharmacology and chemical biology.

The 2021 PhysioNet/Computing in Cardiology Challenge is titled “Will Two Do? Varying Dimensions in Electrocardiography” and calls for designers to build an algorithm that can classify cardiac abnormalities based on 12, 6, 3 and 2-lead ECGs.

So that participants can try out their algorithms, contest organizers are sharing the world’s largest and most diverse set of publicly available ECG data: over 45,000 recordings from China, Europe, Russia and the USA. A similar amount of data has been hidden for the organizers to test the competitors’ algorithms, and a separate evaluation metric will reflects errors of misdiagnosis.

This year’s contest builds upon previous years; in 2017, the challenge was to classify atrial fibrillation based on a single lead, and last year’s was a challenge to diagnose a variety of cardiac problems using standard 12 leads. Contest participants are invited to submit an abstract describing their algorithm, open-source code for their algorithm and a paper on their work.

The contest culminates in the Computing in Cardiology conference, scheduled for September 12-15 in Brno, Czech Republic. More information about the contest is available at PhysioNet.org and requirements for entry and the schedule are detailed at the PhysioNet/Computing in Cardiology Challenge 2021 site. The initial deadline for applying to enter the contest is April 9, 2021.

The contest is part of PhysioNet, an archive of biomedical computing resources supported by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (R01EB030362). It is being co-sponsored by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Google and MathWorks. Complementary MATLAB licenses and Google Cloud Platform credits are being made available for this year’s challenge. The sponsors are also making it possible to offer several prizes worth several thousand dollars.

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Memory screening using eye-tracking on mobile devices

Investigators at Emory Brain Health Center have developed a platform for evaluating visual memory, while someone views photos for a few minutes on an iPad.

Emory researchers, led by Goizuieta Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center director Allan Levey and biomedical informatics chair Gari Clifford, are working with the company Linus Health to develop the VisMET (Visuospatial Memory Eye-Tracking Test) technology further. Results from the most recent version were published in the journal IEEE Transaction on Biomedical Engineering, and the Emory/Linus team continues to refine the technology.

The goal is to screen people for memory issues, identifying those with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or Alzheimer’s disease. The task — difficult to call it a test — was designed to be more efficient, easier to administer, and more enjoyable than tests currently used.

“We think this could be a sensitive and specific method for detecting visual memory impairment, and it’s convenient enough for use on a wider scale,” Levey says.

The VisMET technology is based on this observation. When someone with MCI or Alzheimer’s views a photo twice, and the photo has been changed the second time (example: an object in the scene has been removed), their eyes spend less time checking the new or missing element in the photo, compared with healthy people. This is because the regions of the brain that drive visual memory formation, such as the entorhinal cortex and hippocampus, are some of the earliest to deteriorate in MCI or Alzheimer’s.

Currently, when someone is evaluated for memory loss, they get a battery of “paper and pencil” tests to assess verbal memory. Researchers say the alternative of viewing photos on a tablet could be less intimidating for those taking the test, as well as easier to administer and score. The only instruction given to study participants was to enjoy the images.

“The current way memory tests are implemented can be stressful,” says software engineer Alvince Pongos, who is co-first author of the IEEE TBME paper, now at MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research. “The difficulty of standard memory tests can lead to test-givers repeating task instructions many times, and to test-takers being confused and frustrated. If we design simpler tasks and make our tools available in the comfort of one’s home, then we remove barriers allowing more people to engage with their health information.”

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Detecting heart failure via wearable devices

Cardiology researchers have been eagerly taking up consumer electronic devices that include pulse oximeters. Being able to conveniently measure the level of oxygen in someone’s blood is a useful tool, whether one is interested in sleep apnea, COVID-19 or just want to have a configurable remote patient monitoring tool.

The news that the new Apple Watch includes a pulse oximeter prompted Lab Land to check in with Amit Shah, an Emory cardiologist who has been experimenting with similar devices to discriminate patients with heart failure from those with other conditions.

Shah, together with Shamim Nemati, now at UCSD, and bioinformatics chair Gari Clifford recently published a pilot study on detecting heart failure using the Samsung Simband. The Simband was a prototype device that didn’t make it to the consumer market, but it carried sensors for optical detection of blood volume changes (photoplethysmography), like on the Apple Watch. 

Heart failure causes symptoms such as shortness of breath and leg swelling, but other conditions such as anemia or lung diseases can appear similarly. The idea was to help discriminate people who might need an examination by echocardiogram (cardiac ultrasound).

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Mapping the cancer genome wilderness

A huge cancer genome project has highlighted how DNA that doesn’t code for proteins is still important for keeping our cells on track.

The Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes analyzed more than 2,600 tumors from 38 tissues, looking for causative mutations and patterns. Previous work had concentrated on the regions of the genome that code for proteins, but a significant proportion of cancer patients’ tumors don’t carry known “driver” (causative) mutations in protein-coding regions. So this project went out into what used to be called “junk DNA” or the “dark matter” of the genome.

Emory bioinformatics postdoc Matthew Reyna is the first author of one of 23 papers on the PCAWG project, published Feb. 5 in the Nature family of journals. His paper in Nature Communications looks at mutations in non-coding regions of the genome in tumors, analyzing which biological processes are affected.

Some of these were mutations in the promoters of genes encoding well-known cancer suppressors such as p53, but the project also identified new genes containing cancer-driving mutations. A promoter is the stretch of DNA that tells the cell “make RNA copies starting here”.

Reyna contributed to the project while he was at Princeton, working with Benjamin Raphael, and at Emory as well. More recently, he’s been investigating protein-protein interactions with Haian Fu, Andrey Ivanov and others as part of the Cancer Target Discovery and Development (CTD2) project.

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Probing visual memory at leisure

Emory Brain Health researchers have developed a computer program that passively assesses visual memory. An infrared eye tracker monitors eye movements, while the person being tested views a series of photos.

This approach, relatively unstrenuous for those whose memory is being assessed, is an alternative for the diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer’s disease. It detects degeneration of the regions of the brain that govern visual memory (entorhinal cortex/hippocampus), which are some of the earliest to deteriorate.

The approach was published in Learning and Memory last year, but bioinformatics chair Gari Clifford discussed the project at a recent talk, and we felt it deserved more attention. First author Rafi Haque is a MD/PhD student in the Neuroscience program, with neurology chair/Goizueta ADRC director Allan Levey as senior author.

Eye tracking of people with MCI and Alzheimer’s shows they spend less time checking the new or missing element in the critical region of the photo, compared with healthy controls. Adapted from Haque et al 2019.

The entire test takes around 4 minutes on a standard 24 inch monitor (a follow-up publication on an iPad version is in the pipeline). Photos are presented twice a few minutes apart, and the second time, part of the photo is missing or new – see diagram above. Read more

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Predict the future of critical care in #STATMadness

Emory is participating in STAT Madness, a “March Madness” style bracket competition featuring biomedical research advances instead of basketball teams. Universities or research institutes nominate their champions, research papers that were published the previous year. It’s like “Battle of the Bands.” Whoever gets the loudest — or most numerous — cheers wins.

Please check out all 64 entries, follow the 2019 STAT Madness bracket and vote here:
https://www.statnews.com/feature/stat-madness/bracket/

Emory’s entry for 2019:
It’s like the “precogs” who predict crime in the movie Minority Report, but for sepsis, the deadly response to infection. Shamim Nemati and colleagues have been exploring ways to analyze vital signs in ICU patients and predict sepsis, hours before clinical staff might otherwise notice.

As landmark clinical studies have documented, every hour of delay in giving someone with sepsis antibiotics increases their risk of mortality. So detecting sepsis as early as possible could save thousands of lives. Many hospitals have developed “sniffer” systems that monitor patients for sepsis, but this algorithm tries to spot problems way before they become apparent.

As published in 2018 in Critical Care Medicine, the algorithm can predict sepsis onset—with some false alarms—four, eight, even 12 hours ahead of time. No algorithm is going to be perfect, but it was better than any other previous sepsis predictor. The technology is headed for additional testing and evaluation at several medical centers, as part of a project supported by the federal Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA).

You can fill out a whole bracket or you can just vote for Emory. The contest will last several rounds. The first round began on Monday, March 4, and lasts until the end of the week. Before 10 am Eastern time Monday morning, there were already more than 5,000 brackets entered!

If Emory advances, then people will be able to continue voting for us starting on Friday. Emory’s first opponent is a regional rival, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. We are on the upper left side of the bracket.

STAT News is a Boston-based news organization covering biomedical research, pharma and biotech. If you feel like it, please share on social media using the hashtag #statmadness.

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CAPTCHA some cancer cells

Humans are good at deciphering complex images, compared to computers. Until recently, internet users often needed to verify that they were human by completing a CAPTCHA security check. A familiar variety asked the user to check all the boxes that contain a car, or a street sign.

If we asked random people off the street to look at pathology slides and “quick, check all the boxes that contain tumor cells,” what would happen? The accuracy, compared to a trained pathologist, wouldn’t be very good.

Not as easy as labeling which boxes contain street signs!

This challenge of expertise – crowdsourcing and pathology are not immediately compatible – is what Lee Cooper and colleagues sought to overcome in a recent paper published in Bioinformatics. So they put together something they called “structured crowdsourcing.”

“We are interested in describing how the immune system behaves in breast cancers, and so we built an artificial intelligence system to look at pathology slides and identify the tissue components,” Cooper says.

His group was particularly interested in the aggressive form of breast cancer: triple negative. They used pathology slide images from the Cancer Genome Atlas, a National Cancer Institute resource. The goal was to mark up the slides and label which sections contained tumor, stroma, white blood cells, dead cells etc.

They used social media to recruit 25 volunteers — medical students and pathologists from around the world (Egypt, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Syria, USA). Participants underwent training and used Slack to communicate and learn about how to classify images. They collaborated using the Digital Slide Archive, a tool developed at Emory. Read more

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