The SIG Beat: New SIGS

NEWS FROM AND ABOUT THE SCIENTIFIC INTEREST GROUPS

NEW SIG: Rare Disease Informatics Scientific Interest Group

The goal of the Rare Disease Informatics (RDI) scientific interest group (SIG) is to engage investigators and analysts who are interested in applying computational techniques for biomedical data analysis to support rare-disease research. Collaboration and knowledge-sharing will be promoted among biomedical informaticians and rare-disease experts across the NIH.

The RDI SIG is a trans-NIH group in which investigators apply informatics approaches to curate, harmonize, standardize, and analyze biomedical data obtained from a variety of resources (such as gene sequences, bioassays, electronic health records and other forms of real-world data, and scientific publications) for clinical, biological, and public health research applications. The group will discuss the challenges and emerging technologies of integrating computational techniques into analysis workflows, and new developments in rare-disease informatics applications.

Meetings will be held on the last Friday of each month, 10:00-11:00 a.m. (via Zoom at first) with first meeting being April 28, 2023 (zoom link: https://nih.zoomgov.com/j/1616846590?pwd=aVRYOW5MWFJJRzNHbit3RWFGcGNRdz09). Recent journal articles, relevant projects, and opportunities for initiating collaborations will be discussed. Guest speakers will be invited periodically. For more information, go to https://oir.nih.gov/sigs/rare-disease-informatics-scientific-interest-group or contact Qian Zhu (National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences) at qian.zhu@nih.gov. To join the RDI-SIG LISTSERV and receive notices of meetings, go to https://list.nih.gov/cgi-bin/wa.exe?SUBED1=RDI-SIG.

NEW SIG: iPSC-Based Disease Modeling Scientific Interest Group

This SIG on induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC)-based disease modeling amis to bring together people who have a shared interest in advancing disease modeling using a common platform. This platform will facilitate the exchange of information and resources; the discussion of issues, ideas, and trends; and the sharing of expertise, discoveries, and best technical and scientific practices across iPSC-based disease modeling.

This SIG will help to build a network of stem-cell scientists across all NIH campuses and all the NIH institutes and centers who have diverse interests in patient-tissue development and in using this tool to model simple and complex diseases. The group will discuss common problems—in protocol development, reagent availability, efficiency, and reproducibility—that every stem-cell lab faces when differentiating tissues from iPSCs.

Meetings will be held on the second Thursday of each month, 3:00-4:00 p.m., via Zoom initially.

For more information, go to https://oir.nih.gov/sigs/ipsc-based-disease-modeling-scientific-interest-group or contact the Chair, Fnu Ruchi (Ruchi Sharma) in the National Eye Institute (fnu.ruchi2@nih.gov). To join the I-DISEASE-IG LISTSERV and receive notices of meetings, go to https://list.nih.gov/cgi-bin/wa.exe?SUBED1=I-DISEASE-IG.

All About SIGS

The NIH Intramural Scientific Interest Groups (SIGs) are assemblies of scientists with common research interests. SIGs form and evolve regularly as new scientific trends arise. To find out more about SIGS and see a list of them, go to https://oir.nih.gov/sigs.

Here are just a few of the many SIGs

This page was last updated on Thursday, March 16, 2023