- University News Archive - ��Vlog��ý Little Rock

��Vlog��ý Little Rock Researcher Studying How to Combat Diseases by Identifying Therapeutic Vulnerabilities

John Hill — Wed, 14 Sep 2022 13:15:18 +0000

A joint ��Vlog��ý Little Rock/��Vlog��ýMS doctoral student has been recognized for his research to create a custom protein database to combat complex diseases like melanoma by identifying therapeutic vulnerabilities. Kanishka Manna, a Ph.D. student in the joint bioinformatics program at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock and ��Vlog��ýMS, presented his research at the Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology Conference held July 10-14 in Madison, Wisconsin. Manna, who will graduate in 2023, first became interested in bioinformatics after taking a course on the subject while earning his Master of Science in microbiology at University of Calcutta, India. “The course in bioinformatics interested me to further get into this field,” Manna said. “It’s a niche field between statistics, computer science, and biology. You can explore all three fields at once with this program. The current trend in the field of biology is to be a jack of all trades. This interested me much more, as there is a very scarce number of biologists who venture into this field with the knowledge of statistics, computational algorithms and coding, so as to analyze, interpret and visualize the biological data.” As part of his dissertation research, Manna is building a pipeline that will help researchers detect therapeutic vulnerabilities in complex diseases by combining information from multi-omics data. This pipeline will help researchers find specific mutational proteins (mostly isoforms) that are not found in normal reference databases and help them determine how to treat patients with those mutations who may also be resistant to known drug therapies which inhibits the oncogenic effects of those mutated proteins or the pathway associated with it. He is working with his mentor, Dr. Stephanie Byrum, an associate professor at ��Vlog��ýMS and associate member with the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute. For this research project, Manna studied therapeutic approaches to treat melanoma that include small molecule drugs that target activating protein mutations, which is beneficial to about 50 percent of patients with the activating BRAFV600 mutation. Those who are resistant to the treatment may develop tumors following the treatment. Identifying which mutations patients have that make them resistant to specific treatments can help doctors come up with a customized therapy plan for each patient. In addition to presenting his research, Manna found the conference an inspiration for his research and future career. “For a budding researcher like me, meeting and listening to some of the best scientific minds in the world at this conference was an excellent opportunity to get inspired, expand new networks, and broaden my scientific ability and knowledge,” he said. “The conference provided enough exposure to develop/exchange ideas and establish collaborations. I believe this experience contributed to my graduate research at and and uplifted my research career.”

��Vlog��ý Little Rock receives nearly $450,000 to develop deep learning methods to identify cells that advance complex diseases

John Hill — Thu, 23 Jul 2020 21:28:33 +0000

A University of Arkansas at Little Rock professor has received a $443,854 grant from the National Institutes of Health to develop unique deep learning methods to identify key cell networks in complex diseases. Dr. Mary Yang, professor of information science and director of the Midsouth Bioinformatics Center at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock, will conduct research that will help doctors and scientists further understand how complex diseases evolve and develop in the body as well as how to identify effective drug targets. The three-year grant, “Develop Novel Deep Learning and Combinatorial Optimization Methods to Identify Key Disease Regulatory Elements for Single-Cell Data,” will be complete on July 30, 2023. In addition to its potential contributions to health research, the project will give students valuable experience in developing computational approaches to biomedical problems. “The project will serve as a vehicle to equip undergraduate and graduate students with essential research skills and interdisciplinary knowledge and to stimulate the students’ ambition to pursue careers in biomedical science,” Yang said. Yang’s deep learning model focuses on developing high-resolution, single-cell genomic analytics techniques to capture cell differences with detail and clarity. By clearly characterizing cell differences, scientists can better identify cells that cause diseases to advance and evolve. This technique will allow more specialized, targeted treatments to different cells in the body. Yang will supervise undergraduate students from different disciplines as well as graduate students in the joint ��Vlog��ý Little Rock-��Vlog��ýMS Bioinformatics program during this project. She is collaborating with Dr. Sherman Weissman, a professor of genetics at the Yale University School of Medicine, who will provide experimental validation of the research models created at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock. The MidSouth Bioinformatics Center at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock provides extensive bioscience computational resources and training to faculty, staff, and students in the region. Research reported was supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R15GM137288. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

Graduating student awarded prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship

Ajani Oyindamola — Wed, 08 May 2019 16:18:55 +0000

A University of Arkansas at Little Rock senior has been selected as a 2019 recipient of. Scott Wolf, 19, of White Hall, Arkansas, will graduate May 11 with a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics with minors in history and English. In the fall, Wolf is headed to New Jersey to pursue a Ph.D. in quantitative and computational biology from Princeton University. “Earning the NSF fellowship was a huge accomplishment,” Wolf said. “I had a lot of support from my professors to put together an application of that caliber.” The fellowship provides Scott with three years of financial support within a five-year fellowship period through a $34,000 annual stipend and $12,000 cost-of-education allowance to the student’s graduate institution. The program recruits high-potential, early-career scientists and engineers and supports their graduate research training in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. Launched in 1952 shortly after Congress established the National Science Foundation, the fellowship program represents the nation’s oldest continuous investment in the U.S. STEM workforce. Since he was homeschooled with his three brothers, Wolf began taking dual-enrollment classes at Southeast Arkansas College at age 14 and graduated high school at age 15. At 16, Wolf was attending ��Vlog��ý Little Rock as a recipient of the Chancellor’s Academic Distinction Scholarship. “��Vlog��ý Little Rock is close to home, and a bunch of people in my department have been able to utilize industry ties and take advantage of our connections with technology companies and other businesses in Little Rock,” he said. “I’ve had the opportunity to take advantage of coursework, research, and industry opportunities.” While at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock, Wolf’s work and research opportunities have included working as an undergraduate researcher in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics and a tutor in the Mathematics Assistance Center. He has completed internships at Inuvo Inc. and Entergy. Wolf has also studied abroad three times. He spent the summer of 2016 studying at the Chinese Language Institute at Xiamen Huaxia University and has taken faculty-led trips to South Korea and China. Wolf discovered a love of bioinformatics while completing research in the Systems Genomics Laboratory at the MidSouth Bioinformatics Center with Dr. Mary Yang, the center’s director. “I really appreciated the opportunity to do research in bioinformatics with Dr. Yang,” he said. “Without her, I wouldn’t have any experience in the area. Learning how to interact in a lab was invaluable when it came to going to Princeton and moving forward with research.” With a new interest in bioinformatics, Wolf sought out summer research opportunities and found the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics at Princeton University. Last summer, he conducted research at Princeton in quantitative and computational biology, the field he will now pursue as a doctoral student. “I intend to explore how the fundamentals of mathematics, computer science, and statistics intersect with physiology, genomics, and neuroscience to give insight into complex biological systems,” he said. “I am particularly interested in how complex behavioral patterns can be quantified and how they emerge at the individual and group level.” Looking back on his time at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock, Wolf is thankful to professors who served as mentors in his academic pursuits as well as those who lifted his spirits in times of distress. “There have been all kinds of people who have helped me at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock. You get research mentors who are critically important and community members, who aren’t formal mentors, but are there to talk to you and have some equity in you as a person,” Wolf said. “Someone like Dr. James Levernier from the English Department who goes out of the way to tell you to pursue your passion and take advantage of all the resources you can. When you are beaten down over a piece of research you can’t understand, they are there to sympathize with you. In the math department, there is a sense of community I haven’t seen elsewhere. I know the professors, and I can talk to them. ��Vlog��ý Little Rock has been a good community for me.”

College of Engineering and Information Technology announces award winners

Ajani Oyindamola — Wed, 02 May 2018 14:51:43 +0000

The George W. Donaghey College of Engineering and Information Technology at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock honored nearly 100 awards winners during the college’s annual awards ceremony on April 27. Earlier in the day, students from the college displayed their research and capstone projects during the third annual EIT Open House. The event was sponsored by Arkansas Research Alliance, Bernhard TME Engineering, Harrison Energy Partners, Little Rock Regional Chamber, Mainstream Technologies, and VCC. The awards winners include:

EIT College Awards

Laura Butler – Outstanding Associate Degree Graduate Award Hugh Benfer – Outstanding Bachelor’s Degree Graduate Award Hadi Salman – Outstanding Master’s Degree Graduate Award Li-hsin Chang – Outstanding Master’s Degree Graduate Award Yanyan Li – Outstanding Ph.D. Degree Graduate Award

EIT Student Support Center Undergraduate Awards

Jason Simmons – Third Place Yu Nie – Second Place Justin Parker – First Place

EIT Graduate Awards

Suzan Anwar – Third Place Adewale Obadimu – Second Place Evan Xiangwe – First Place

EIT Abstract Awards

Sandeep Munot – Third Place Shashank Khaire – Second Place Pablo Centeno – First Place

Elevator Speech Awards

Sandeep Munot – Honorable Mention Harrison Blume – Honorable Mention J’Von Jackson – Honorable Mention Eric Brasby – Honorable Mention Madhuri Ghorpade – Honorable Mention Trigun Maroo – Grand Prize

Mainstream Technologies Awards

Ruipeng Zhang – Applied Innovation Award Karen Watts – Professional Presentation Award Tuja Khaund – Complete Solution Award

Arkansas Research Alliance Awards

Vernard Henley (left) presents Adewale Obadimu (right) with second place in the EIT Grad Awards.

Adewale Obadimu – Third Place Suzan Anwar – Second Place Jaimes Krutz – First Place

Department of Earth Science Awards

Kayla Bolin, Jason Spencer, Jason Simmons, and Callie Pace – 2018 Field Camp Award Rebecca Bishop and Tyler Kee – Outstanding Laboratory Assistants Luke Tyhurst – Laboratory Assistant of the Year Matt Carey – Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant Matt Carey and Tyler Kee – Outstanding Service Award Aaron Baggett – Outstanding Graduate Student Jason Simmons – Outstanding Senior Award Olivia Pate – Philip and Marietta Kehler Endowed Scholarship Recipient

Department of Construction Management and Civil and Construction Engineering Awards

Nicole Compton, Jonathan Henderson, David Greenwood, Amanda Hall, Jonathan Picking, Sandeep Munot, Daniel Trotta, and William Beggs – Excellence Award for Academic Scholarship

Blake Johnston, Edyta Osiecko, Harrison Hayworth, Kassandra Castrillo, and Sam Kincannon – 2018 American Society of Civil Engineers Student Chapter Service Award

Department of Engineering Technology Awards

Christa Hindman – Freshman Award Gregory Riley – Sophomore Award Abdellatif Elmansouri – Junior Award Cory Fortson – Senior Award Elias Perez Reyes – Freshman Award Pablo Centeno – Sophomore Award Steven Swaffar – Junior Award Chris Kelly – Senior Award Anthony Elkins, Robert Hurst, Trent Smith, and Spencer Young – Senior Project Award Matthew Hood – Senior Project Award Christopher Bohner – Departmental Service Award Garret Rich – Outstanding Graduate Award Matthew Hood – Outstanding Graduate Award Gordon Ward IV – Outstanding Graduate Award Zachary Setzer – Outstanding Graduate Award

Department of Computer Science Awards

Peyton Laughley – Outstanding Freshman Award Connor Stegeman – Outstanding Sophomore Award Cindy Monterroz – Outstanding Junior Award Thomas Goss – Outstanding Graduating Senior Award Tanner Marshall – Outstanding Service Award Yanyan Li – Outstanding Research Award Chen Xu – Outstanding Master Student Award Ramiro Serrano – Outstanding First Year Doctoral Student Award Suzan Anawar – Outstanding Publication Award Connor Young – Outstanding Doctoral Student Award

Department of Information Science Awards

Eric Grasby – Outstanding Student Evan Alden – Outstanding Student Ambassador James Watts – Outstanding Web Design Student Zachary Randolph – Outstanding Web Design Student April Lim – Outstanding ITEC Student

��Vlog��ý Little Rock/��Vlog��ýMS Graduate Program in Bioinformatics Awards

Ujwani Nukala – Outstanding Doctoral Student Dan Li – Excellence in Research Award Sunil Nokku – Outstanding M.S. Project Li-Hsin Chang – Outstanding Master’s Award Shilpa Karma Konda – Outstanding Service Award Yumeng Ye – Outstanding Research Award Bingyi Zhong – Outstanding Service Award Yu Nie – Outstanding Research Award Dr. Daniel Pullen – Outstanding Alumni Award

Department of Systems Engineering Awards

John Graham – Outstanding Sophomore Award Damon Wallace – Outstanding Sophomore Award Andrew Cherry – Outstanding Junior Award Patrick Elliot – Outstanding Junior Award Andrew Lockhart – Outstanding Senior Award Anderson Banihirwe – Outstanding Senior Award Shelby Wingate – Outstanding Undergraduate Research Award Bailey Barnes – Successful Doctoral Student Award Sheng Sang – Successful Doctoral Student Award He Zang – Successful Doctoral Student Award

Information Science Department receives over $260,000 to support ��Vlog��ýMS bioinformatics research program

��Vlog��ý Little Rock — Mon, 11 Sep 2017 18:36:49 +0000

The Department of Information Science at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock has received more than $260,000 to continue its partnership with the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (��Vlog��ýMS). This partnership supports the Bioinformatics Core of the Arkansas IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence (INBRE) program. Awarded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), this grant is active for five years. The total funding for the five-year period is over $1.3 million. The Bioinformatics Core supports students, faculty, and researchers throughout the state and region with technology, education, training, and services related to biomedical research. Bioinformatics is a multidisciplinary field that focuses on the development of software, methods, and tools to interpret and analyze biological data such as genetic codes, proteins, and molecular structures. The Bioinformatics Core primarily supports the joint ��Vlog��ý Little Rock/��Vlog��ýMS Graduate Program in Bioinformatics. The graduate program began officially in 2004 directly from Arkansas INBRE funding and offers two graduate degrees in bioinformatics. The Bioinformatics Core also supports activities of the MidSouth Bioinformatics Center at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock. This center provides consulting services, computational resources, skills workshops, reference library, and online knowledge base to students, faculty, and researchers. The center also provides graduate assistantships. Some of these assistantships are sponsored by Arkansas INBRE, the College of Engineering and Information Technology, and the ��Vlog��ýMS College of Medicine. Additionally, the Bioinformatics Core supports undergraduate faculty researchers sponsored by Arkansas INBRE who concentrate on bioinformatics research. Dr. Elizabeth Pierce, chair of the Department of Information Science and principal investigator of the grant, is dedicated to providing opportunities to students in this field. “Today, more than ever, bioinformatics is critical for anyone interested in a career in the life sciences,” Pierce said. “Whether it involves medicine, climate, environment, animals, plants, food, or forensics, these areas are generating genomic data at an astonishing rate. Helping people to master the tools and techniques for working with this massive bio data is a critical goal of this grant.” Through the Bioinformatics Core, the center provides technical and strategic support to the , a regional society founded by ��Vlog��ý Little Rock professor Dr. Steve Jennings. Arkansas INBRE is funded by a grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences under the NIH Institutional Development Award Program. This program was established to broaden the geographic distribution of NIH funding for biomedical and behavioral research. Currently, this program supports INBRE programs in 23 states and Puerto Rico.

��Vlog��ý Little Rock alum gives back by serving on newly formed council

Ajani Oyindamola — Wed, 12 Jul 2017 15:05:28 +0000

Michael Bauer isn’t sure what direction his life might have taken if a University of Arkansas at Little Rock professor hadn’t taken a special interest in him while he was a graduate student. “I really liked my experience at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock,” Bauer said. “I didn’t have the highest GPA coming out of my undergraduate education, but Dr. Steve Jennings (former director of the bioinformatics program at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock) took a chance on me, accepted me into the program, and guided me through it.” After graduating from the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock joint bioinformatics doctoral program with the, Bauer, now 36, is an assistant professor of biomedical informatics at the . Now, Bauer is giving back by serving on the newly formed Science Dean’s Council at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock. Council members advocate on behalf of the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock College of Arts, Letters, and Sciences and garner community support for science programs, including faculty and undergraduate research funding, the Fribourgh Award receptions, and the Science Olympiad. “Dr. Jennings was of real help to me at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock,” he said. “Now I have a chance to give back and show my appreciation for this university. I want to give others the same opportunity I was given.”

Following a path to success

After completing his undergraduate education, Bauer finished a computer science internship in 2005 for minority students at the Arctic Region Supercomputing Center in Fairbanks, Alaska. He collected elevation data and satellite imagery to help create a 3-D flight simulator. “This experience showed me that I wanted to attend graduate school, and that I wanted to do more research.” A native of Farmington, New Mexico, Bauer earned bachelor’s degrees in computer science and biology from the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, before leaving his desert homeland to pursue graduate degrees at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock. As a graduate assistant at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock, Bauer worked on a National Science Foundation-funded project, WikiHyperGlossary, which served as an information literacy tool for chemistry education. “When I did my graduate research with Dr. Bob Belford, he had this idea to build a tool that would take a document and link it to images, glossaries, and videos, so you would be able to see and understand the concepts as you read them.” Bioinformatics is the science of collecting and analyzing complex biological data such as genetic codes. Bauer describes it as using the power of computers to get a handle on the unbelievably high amount of available biological data. “The human genome has over 3 billion base pairs, and you need supercomputers and that level of computational power to make sense of all that data,” he said. At the Myeloma Institute, Bauer’s work with advanced gene sequencing techniques allows him to develop personalized treatment plans for new myeloma patients. Myeloma is a cancer of plasma cells in the bone marrow. Bauer’s work helps determine which treatment plan is best for each patient, helping them live longer and have a better quality of life. Bauer hopes bioinformatics will help him discover if there are genetic reasons why African Americans are as other races to be diagnosed with myeloma. “I’m interested in looking at African American health care,” he said. “They seem to be disproportionately diagnosed with myeloma. I want to know why African Americans get myeloma at higher rates than other races.” Bauer and his wife, Akemi, have four children, Kana, Sana, Mana, and Michihito, and reside in Little Rock.

Community invited to discover bioinformatics at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock

Ajani Oyindamola — Wed, 12 Apr 2017 17:59:50 +0000

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock will host a bioinformatics day on Friday, April 14, for students, faculty, and the public to learn more about the growing field of bioinformatics. The discovery day will take place from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Friday, April 14, in the Donaghey Student Center on the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock campus. The event is free and open to the public. High school and college students and educators are encouraged to attend to learn about the educational resources and research and career opportunities available in the field of bioinformatics. Lunch will be provided. Bioinformatics is an interdisciplinary science that combines life sciences, computer and information sciences, statistics, mathematics, and engineering to analyze and interpret biological data. Dr. David Ussery, who in February was named the Helen Adams & Arkansas Research Alliance endowed chair in biomedical informatics at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, will serve as the keynote speaker. He will talk about the history of genomics, his research, and its uses in bioinformatics. In biomedical informatics, computational approaches are used to assess and analyze large sets of medical and public health data for patient care and research programs, including sequence information such as genetics and genomic data. Ussery’s research includes genome sequencing through low-cost, high-output technology, which can helptrack emerging infections. He is working with the Arkansas Department of Health to sequence the DNA of mosquitoes to track outbreaks of the Zika virus. Dr. Elizabeth Pierce, chair of the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Department of Information Science, created the event to showcase the research and career opportunities in the ever-growing field of bioinformatics. “Bioinformatics is a tremendous growth area for the state of Arkansas,” Pierce said. “I wanted to get the word out to students that bioinformatics is not just for medical applications. It can be used whenever you are dealing with living organisms.” Pierce brought in a range of speakers to show students how big data is being used in multiple disciplines. ��Vlog��ý Little Rock faculty and students will showcase their bioinformatics research in gene therapy, climate change, drug development, preventative medicine, forensic analysis, alternative energy sources, and many more areas. The event will also feature an ecology and conservation bio data panel. Members include Bill Holimon from the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission, Scott Woolbright from the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Department of Biology, Justin Stroman from Arkansas Game and Fish, and Don Bragg from the U.S. Forest Service. Bragg will also serve as one of two lunch speakers. He will speak about the use of national forestry data. In addition, David Luneau, associate professor in the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Department of Engineering Technology, will speak about his work with scientists to create technology for monitoring wildlife. Bioinformatics Discovery Day is supported by the Arkansas IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence Grant. Visit the Bioinformatics Discovery Day website for a schedule of events and to register for the event. In the upper right photo is Dr. David Ussery, Helen Adams & Arkansas Research Alliance endowed chair in biomedical informatics at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, who will serve as the keynote speaker of Bioinformatics Discovery Day. Photo courtesy of University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.

- University News Archive - ����Vlog��ý Little Rock

����Vlog��ý Little Rock Researcher Studying How to Combat Diseases by Identifying Therapeutic Vulnerabilities

����Vlog��ý Little Rock receives nearly $450,000 to develop deep learning methods to identify cells that advance complex diseases