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At least 433 records · Page 24Linked to original sources

Rational drug discovery revisited: interfacing experimental programs with bio- and chemo-informatics.

Over the past few years, bio- and chemo-informatics have rapidly evolved as related yet distinct disciplines. In drug discovery, it is increasingly recognized that combining and integrating these approaches is crucial for their successful application. In addition, the use of complementary experimental and informatics techniques increases the chances of success in many stages of the discovery process, from the identification of novel targets and elucidation of their functions to the discovery and development of lead compounds with desired properties. This review highlights recent trends that emphasize the role of integrated bio- and chemo-informatics research in drug discovery and discusses representative concepts and methodologies.

Journal Article↗

Immuno-informatics: Mining genomes for vaccine components.

The complete genome sequences of more than 60 microbes have been completed in the past decade. Concurrently, a series of new informatics tools, designed to harness this new wealth of information, have been developed. Some of these new tools allow researchers to select regions of microbial genomes that trigger immune responses. These regions, termed epitopes, are ideal components of vaccines. When the new tools are used to search for epitopes, this search is usually coupled with in vitro screening methods; an approach that has been termed computational immunology or immuno-informatics. Researchers are now implementing these combined methods to scan genomic sequences for vaccine components. They are thereby expanding the number of different proteins that can be screened for vaccine development, while narrowing this search to those regions of the proteins that are extremely likely to induce an immune response. As the tools improve, it may soon be feasible to skip over many of the in vitro screening steps, moving directly from genome sequence to vaccine design. The present article reviews the work of several groups engaged in the development of immuno-informatics tools and illustrates the application of these tools to the process of vaccine discovery.

Algorithms↗

Outcomes management of mechanically ventilated patients: utilizing informatics technology.

This article examines an informatics system developed for outcomes management of the mechanically ventilated adult population, focusing on weaning the patient from mechanical ventilation. The link between medical informatics and outcomes management is discussed, along with the development of methods, tools, and data sets for outcomes management of the mechanically ventilated adult population at an acute care academic institution. Pros and cons of this system are identified, and specific areas for improvement of future health care outcomes medical informatics systems are discussed.

Adult↗

Challenges for biomedical informatics and pharmacogenomics.

Pharmacogenomics requires the integration and analysis of genomic, molecular, cellular, and clinical data, and it thus offers a remarkable set of challenges to biomedical informatics. These include infrastructural challenges such as the creation of data models and databases for storing these data, the integration of these data with external databases, the extraction of information from natural language text, and the protection of databases with sensitive information. There are also scientific challenges in creating tools to support gene expression analysis, three-dimensional structural analysis, and comparative genomic analysis. In this review, we summarize the current uses of informatics within pharmacogenomics and show how the technical challenges that remain for biomedical informatics are typical of those that will be confronted in the postgenomic era.

Communication↗

Public health informatics: how information-age technology can strengthen public health.

The combination of the burgeoning interest in health, health care reform and the advent of the Information Age, represents a challenge and an opportunity for public health. If public health's effectiveness and profile are to grow, practitioners and researchers will need reliable, timely information with which to make information-driven decisions, better ways to communicate, and improved tools to analyze and present new knowledge. "Public Health Informatics" (PHI) is the science of applying Information-Age technology to serve the specialized needs of public health. In this paper we define Public Health Informatics, outline specific benefits that may accrue from its widespread application, and discuss why and how an academic discipline of public health informatics should be developed. Finally, we make specific recommendations for actions that government and academia can take to assure that public health professionals have the systems, tools, and training to use PHI to advance the mission of public health.

Communication↗

The complexity of radiation stress responses: analysis by informatics and functional genomics approaches.

Molecular responses to genotoxic stress are complex and are mediated by a variety of regulatory pathways. One key element in cellular response is the stress gene transcription factor p53, which can regulate nearly 100 genes that have already been identified. Although p53 plays a central role in the cellular response to DNA-damaging agents such as ionizing radiation (IR), other pathways can also have important roles. One example is the transcriptional responses associated with IR-induced apoptosis, where induction of some genes is limited to p53 wild-type (wt) cells that also have the ability to undergo rapid apoptosis after irradiation. In contrast, other genes are triggered after IR in lines undergoing rapid apoptosis regardless of p53 status. From this and other examples, it is apparent that the pattern of stress gene expression is cell type specific in both primary and transformed lines. The premise will be developed that such differences in stress gene responsiveness can be employed as molecular markers using a combination of informatics and functional genomics approaches. An example is given using the panel of lines of the NCI anticancer drug screen where both the p53 status and sensitivity to a large collection of cytotoxic agents have been determined. The utility of cDNA microarray hybridization to measure IR-stress gene responses has recently been demonstrated and a large number of additional IR-stress genes have been identified. The responses of some of these genes to IR and other DNA-damaging agents varied widely in cell lines from different tissues of origin and different genetic backgrounds, highlighting the importance of cellular context to genotoxic stress responses; this also highlights the need for informatics approaches to discover and prioritize hypotheses regarding the importance of particular cellular factors. The aim of this review is to demonstrate the utility of combining an informatics approach with functional genomics in the study of stress responses.

Animals↗

Health informatics and community health: support for patients as collaborators in care.

Health informatics has much to offer community health care. Computer networks and telecommunications provide particular support that can enhance the collaboration among clinicians, care providers and patients. Special-purpose computer tools referred to as Consumer Health Informatics (CHI) represent the application of computer and information technologies specifically to support the health information and communication needs of patients and lay persons. Research projects like ComputerLink and CHESS demonstrate that CHI is acceptable to patients and promotes self-care and disease management. Three grand challenges must be faced to insure realization of the promise of health informatics to community health care: development of knowledge management and information discovery tools for patients, insurance of health information literacy for all persons, and re-engineering clinical practice to capitalize on patients as full partners in health care.

Community Health Services↗

Biomedical informatics: precious scientific resource and public policy dilemma.

Biomedical informatics includes the application of computers, information networks and systems, and a growing body of scientific understanding to a range of problems. As skill in this field increases and as progress in virtually all modern biomedical science becomes more data intensive, informatics becomes a precious resource. Applications areas include access to knowledge, discovery in genomics, medical records, mathematical modeling, and bioengineering. At the same time, progress in informatics is deeply dependent on resolution of four major public policy issues: digital intellectual property rights, genetic testing protection, medical data privacy, and the role of biomedical data in the context of information warfare and homeland security.

Anatomy, Cross-Sectional↗

[What role does informatics play in pathology?].

Informatics can be understood as an element of management, dealing with structures of files, algorithms and hardware. The most important prerequisite to successful use of informatics is an optimal compatibility between these single elements. To realize this compatibility and to ascertain a permanent operability of informatics in pathology, the realization of the following two conditions are advisable: 1) The differentiation between a general administrative system of the whole department of pathology and systems of special units (e.g. laboratories); 2) the modularity of the laboratory systems.

Humans↗

Establishing a nursing informatics program.

Nursing informatics is the synthesis of nursing science, information management science, and computer science to enhance the input, retrieval, manipulation, and/or distribution of nursing data. The literature abounds with articles stressing the unmet computer needs of nurses. Nurses must go beyond knowing computer terms and following basic program commands; they must be informatics competent. This article proposes five courses in nursing informatics to enhance all areas of nursing: practice, administration, education, and research.

Certification↗

Informatics futures in dental education and research: quality assurance.

Traditional methods for quality assurance are increasingly being questioned on the grounds of costs and effectiveness. Quality assurance in dentistry has suffered from many of the same problems that have impeded development of the field outside the hospital sector: inadequate data sources, a paucity of broad-based research demonstrating the effects of various treatment approaches on patient outcomes, and a lack of cost-effective methods by which to monitor and evaluate care. Informatics holds considerable promise for dealing with those problems in a comprehensive, reliable and efficient manner. Although a considerable shared commitment on the art of academic dentistry will be needed, the anticipated advantages to be gained in terms of advancing the quality of dental education, research and patient care are substantial. The initiatives being undertaken by the AADS Special Committee on Information Technology are most timely. Parallel informatics efforts are being mounted at the national and international level in numerous health care disciplines. The dental academic community should be prepared to take advantage of the opportunities that the field of informatics is expected to yield in the near future so that it can provide leadership in promoting positive changes within the profession.

Accreditation↗

[Informatics: applications in bacteriology].

The subject of this work is to describe one of the possible applications of the informatics system in medical bacteriology, its exploitation in edition of the analysis results and in the management of produced stocks. The informatics is presently a very productive tool giving a precise information, a very important time gain and a better control of the costs. This work admit two chapters. In the first one, we give general notions of informatics and in the second one we describe the applications.

Algeria↗

Standardisation in medical informatics in Europe.

This paper stresses the importance of standardisation in the domain of healthcare informatics and telematics. The paper gives an overview of the current standing of the activities of CEN TC 251 (European Standardisation Committee, Technical Committee on Healthcare Informatics) and describes the scope and content of a number of emerging European standards.

Europe↗

Critical dimensions in medical informatics.

A typology of medical informatics applications is proposed around three dimensions: the dimension of care, the dimension of information and knowledge, and the aspects of the computerized society. These dimension can help both to evaluate application or research papers in the field or to derive long term goals for the discipline. In the first dimension medical informatics appears more as a technology driven by external forces such as the general progress of medicine or the integration of economical constraints in the choice of optimal procedures. It is argued that barriers to overcome as well as challenges for future research mainly remain in the two last dimensions.

Artificial Intelligence↗

A survey of medical informatics in Belgium.

The Belgian Society for Medical Informatics (MIM) organized a survey in 1986 in order to assess the present state of development of medical informatics in Belgium. Questionnaires were sent to hospitals, laboratories, private practitioners and pharmacists, as well as to social security organizations and software industries. The response rate was higher in hospitals (93%) than in any other category. Results showed a large number of computerized hospitals (93% of general acute care hospitals and 91% of psychiatric hospitals). There has been a sharp increase (+ 15%) in computerization of the admission, accounting and billing procedures since 1985, most likely in relation with administrative rules issued by the Belgian Government. The same trend (+ 20%) has been observed for computer applications in clinical laboratories, between 1984 and 1985. There is almost one computer terminal for ten beds in the hospitals with more than 200 beds in 1986. This figure exemplifies the present trend to on-line access to data. Computerized instrumental aids to medicine such as text processing, imaging or computerized interpretation of signals have known a rapid extension during recent years, although less comprehensive than administrative applications in hospitals and in social security organizations. The present state of other applications in medicine (general practice, pharmacy, etc.) was more difficult to assess as those information systems remain more pinpointed. In all medical fields, there appears to be a new rise in computer programs offered by software companies.

Belgium↗

Approaches to the construction of a medical informatics glossary and thesaurus.

In a project concerned with establishing a glossary and thesaurus for the medical informatics domain, various approaches to the task have been investigated. The developers take the view that a glossary should be a coherent system of terms, reflecting a coherent system of concepts that underlies a body of knowledge about a domain. A framework for the conceptual analysis of the concepts/terms underlying the domain has been developed. The emphasis of this framework is on how the concepts relate together. This work has given an important insight into how the practical task of establishing well-structured vocabularies for a field can be better achieved. An eclectic approach to term selection was adopted. Criteria for assessing what constitutes good definitions for concepts in a field were examined. Using all these approaches glossaries, thesauri and domain models of the medical informatics field are being developed. Another aspect of our work of particular interest is the development of attributed definitions from which inheritance patterns can be defined.

Data Collection↗

Agent-oriented captology for medical informatics.

Considering that neither captology nor agent-orientation, are applied in medical informatics, as they could be, the paper presents a broad-spectrum generic architectural framework to support developing adaptive medical applications, based on synergistic correlation between persuasive interfaces and intelligent agents. Their main features are adapted for medical informatics. Lying on this groundwork, the design space for agent-oriented persuasive applications is defined and several guidelines for its main dimensions are given. The approach is instantiated through an agent-based test-bench application, having the purpose to persuade to quit smoking.

Artificial Intelligence↗

Structuring European biomedical informatics to support individualized healthcare: current issues and future trends.

Bioinformatics and Medical Informatics are disciplines that up to now have followed separate development with few contacts and synergies between them in Europe. The elucidation of the human genome has however evidenced the need and the possibilities for a strong synergy between the two. Classical epidemiological and clinical research on the one hand, and genomic research on the other, separately considered, are no longer enough for advancing in the so-called genomic medicine, and a new integrative approach is required. Biomedical Informatics is the emerging discipline that aims to put these two worlds together so that the discovery and creation of novel diagnostic and therapeutic methods is fostered. On the basis of the results of the European Commission-funded BIOINFOMED Study, an INFOBIOMED Network of Excellence has been recently constituted with the main objective of setting a durable structure for the described collaborative approach at a European level. Initially formed by fifteen renowned European organisations, the main objective of the INFOBIOMED network is therefore to enable the reinforcement of European BMI as an integrative discipline.

Biomedical Research↗