ARC 2021 Adrian Lee Abstract and Biography
Abstract
Biomedical Computing – Solving the Art of Precision Medicine
The premise of precision medicine is that with enough data, we should be able to define disease progression and treatment and ultimately be able to actually predict risk and prevent such diseases. Biomedical researchers are showing that this ‘data’ can come from many instances including health care records and genomics. While the use of such ‘Big Data’ has been a buzzword for many years, there are now clear examples of successful implementation of precision medicine, such as identification of the mutations responsible for thousands of monogenic diseases, and how clinical sequencing of these mutations can improve treatment and eliminate diagnostic odysseys. However, the biomedical enterprise was not prepared for the onslaught of large volumes of data and this has driven fundamental changes in infrastructure and the workforce. For example, high performance computing is now becoming a mainstay of biomedical studies and researchers and clinicians are now being trained in data science. In this talk I will discuss how the University of Pittsburgh and UPMC, in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University, are expanding infrastructure for biomedical computing and how novel computational algorithms and approaches are delivering precision medicine in the clinic.
Biography
Dr. Lee is a professor of pharmacology & chemical biology and human genetics at the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center, and the Pittsburgh Foundation Chair and director of the Institute for Precision Medicine at Pitt and UPMC. His research focuses on the molecular basis of breast cancer development and resistance to therapy, with the goal of improving precision medicine and outcomes for breast cancer patients. The laboratory employs a systems biology approach, utilizing a combination of single cell and bulk sequencing to identify and validate new drivers and therapeutic targets. The lab generates numerous large datasets and collaborates with computational/system biologists to develop new algorithms and knowledge that can be then be tested in the wet lab. Hypotheses are tested in vitro and in vivo and then moved to clinical trials. Dr. Lee is PI of the data coordinating center for national breast cancer sequencing consortium performed in collaboration with the Department of Biomedical Informatics and the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center. Dr. Lee has chaired and served on several local/national committees and NIH study sections. His laboratory is funded by NIH, DoD, and numerous foundations. In 2018 Dr. Lee received the Terri L. Chapman Award from Susan G. Komen (Greater Pennsylvania Affiliate), the PNC Elsie Hillman Distinguished Scholar Award from UPMC Hillman Cancer Center, and the Biomedical Graduate Scholar Association (BGSA) Distinguished Mentor Award from the University of Pittsburgh.