What is natural language processing? Six questions with Amy Olex
The machines are learning. But that’s OK, because Amy Olex, M.S., is there to teach them. The senior bioinformatics specialist at the Wright Center is extracting de-identified information from troves of clinical notes so that health researchers at VCU and VCU Health can create meaningful studies and bring research results to patients more quickly. Natural […]
Wright Center researchers featured for Global Diversity Awareness Month
VCU Health featured two VCU researchers, both serving in community engagement roles at the Wright Center for Clinical and Translational Research, for October’s Global Diversity Awareness Month. “Diversity matters in health care because it drives innovation,” said Katherine Tossas, Ph.D., M.S., whose work is informed by bioinformatics and community-engaged research. Tossas, the director of catchment […]
VCU researchers can now access national COVID-19 data
Virginia Commonwealth University researchers can now tap into a national resource to further their study of COVID-19. The National COVID Cohort Collaborative, or N3C, led by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), securely collects and organizes clinical and diagnostic data from patients across the country to create a dataset broad enough to engage in meaningful research […]
VCU joins national data collaboration to fight COVID-19
Virginia Commonwealth University has joined a national, centralized data resource designed to help researchers study COVID-19 for years to come. The National COVID Cohort Collaborative, or N3C, led by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), will securely collect and organize clinical and diagnostic data from patients across the country to create a dataset broad enough […]
COVID-19 registry now available to aid VCU researchers
A growing COVID-19 registry is now easily accessible to all Virginia Commonwealth University researchers. Any VCU investigator working in basic science, clinical and translational research may request access to registry samples, data, or both. Principal Investigator Somaya Albhaisi, M.D., an assistant professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at the VCU School of Medicine, created a COVID-19 registry […]
Wright Center COVID trials expanded with the help of medical language services
adapted from a VCU Health news story Clara Dutari is bilingual, interpreting for Spanish-speaking patients at VCU Health. But she doesn’t just convert words, like a Spanish-English dictionary. She provides context, nuance and intuition to improve communication. One of six interpreters and translators at VCU Medical Center, Dutari sometimes sees patients nodding as their doctor […]
Zero to Sixty: The Wright Center’s rapid response to COVID-19
The Wright Center has been on the front lines of the battle against COVID-19 since March. As Virginia Commonwealth University’s home for interdisciplinary human health research, the center is uniquely positioned to act as a bridge between the physicians, faculty, researchers and staff that are engaged in fighting the pandemic on multiple fronts. And it’s […]
Wright Center Welcomes Three VCU Faculty to its Leadership Team
Three VCU faculty joined the leadership team of the Wright Center – official today. They bring a breadth of expertise and experience to the center’s mission of providing the infrastructure and resources that promote interdisciplinary human health research at VCU. Robert Winn, M.D., who became director of VCU’s Massey Cancer Center in December, joins the […]
Wright Center Scholar Presents at NIH’s National Library of Medicine
Amy Olex, senior bioinformatics specialist at the Wright Center, presented her research to top scientists and leadership of the National Institute of Health on Feb. 20 at the institute’s library in Bethesda. Olex introduced NIH researchers to her three clinical natural language processing (NLP) projects: one identifying opioid overdoses in the emergency department, a second […]
Ph.D. student receives grant to attend AMIA Symposium
An earlier version of this story was published by VCU Engineering. Computer science doctoral candidate Amy Olex received a travel grant to attend the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) 2019 Annual Symposium held in November in Washington, D.C. This event is considered the foremost symposium for the science and practice of biomedical informatics in the […]
