Four- to Eight-Week Sessions
Rotation Coordinator:
Virginia Meyer, PhD
Rotation Description
This elective introduces biomedical informatics to students who are interested in using computing systems, networked communications, and information technologies in medicine. It is administered by the NIH Clinical Center and run by the Intramural Research Training Program at the Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications and the National Center for Biotechnology Information at the National Library of Medicine.
The National Library of Medicine (NLM) is the world's largest medical library and a leader in medical informatics research. NLM's online information resources are authoritative, comprehensive, up-to-date, and largely free and available to the public. Many involve on-going research and development.
NLM's Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications (LHNCBC) conducts R&D in biomedical informatics and uses advanced communications and computing technologies to improve how NLM brings clinical data and health information to consumers, health care providers, and researchers. The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) conducts R&D in computational biology and advances science and health by creating automated systems to store and analyze biological and genetic data and by facilitating the use of these databases and software by the research and medical communities.
Projects at LHNCBC and NCBI are organized into six research areas:
- Health Information Standards and Discovery
- Image Processing
- Natural Language Processing
- Evolutionary Genomics and Biomolecular Structure
- Networks, Gene Regulation, and Chromatin
- Statistical Methods
Participants can work on on-going research projects under the guidance of NLM Intramural Research Program principal investigators. Projects can continue after the training has ended.
Rotation Objectives
- To learn about the medical information resources that NIH and NLM provide today and about the motivations and challenges in current LHNCBC, NCBI, and Clinical Center biomedical informatics research
- To study the purpose, design, operation, and effectiveness of representative biomedical informatics applications
- To explore enabling technologies that can impact the development and use of future biomedical information systems
- To gain experience in independent study and research under the guidance of LHNCBC, NCBI, and Clinical Center staff
- To describe study/research results through written and oral presentations and to improve written work and presentations through critiques with other participants in the elective
- To become aware of research funding and professional development opportunities for physicians specializing in biomedical informatics, including through discussions with leading biomedical informatics practitioners and researchers
Selection of Applicants
Applicants for this elective must be enrolled in an accredited medical or dental school. They are expected to have had some experience with computing and information systems, including programming, in clinical medicine or clinical research. Previous computer science and/or computer engineering education may be helpful but is not required. Applicants are encouraged to highlight relevant experience and interest in biomedical informatics in the cover letter.