Introduction to Biomedical Informatics and its Application to Clinical and
Translational Research
INSTRUCTOR:
Rakesh Nagarajan rakesh@wustl.edu
LAB INSTRUCTORS:
Bijoy George bgeorge@path.wustl.edu
Leslie McIntosh lmcintosh@path.wustl.edu
David Mulvihill dmulvihill@path.wustl.edu
Snehil Gupta sgupta@path.wustl.edu
Sharepoint Site: https://portal.wusm.wustl.edu/cbmi/bmi2010
COURSE DESCRIPTION
Biomedical Informatics (BMI) is a multidisciplinary field that encompasses individual areas of
bioinformatics, computational biology, translational informatics, imaging informatics, medical
informatics, and hospital informatics. It involves all aspects of management, analysis, organization and
sharing of information in health care and biomedical science. This course aims to provide an overview of
biomedical informatics and its application in facilitating clinical and translational research and in
accelerating the application of research findings to clinical practice. The course will consist of
introductory lectures outlining the principles of biomedical informatics, current use of informatics in
clinical and translational research and quality improvement initiatives, and practical hands-on training in
the use of local informatics tools to manage and execute biomedical research studies.
COURSE OBJECTIVES

Increase awareness of the discipline of biomedical informatics and its application in conducting
clinical and translational research across Washington University.

Educate clinicians, researchers, and students on the latest informatics tools and technology
available to facilitate clinical and translational research. The course lab work will specifically
focus on the use and application of the following three tools.
1. CIDER: Clinical Investigation Data Exploration Repository (CIDER) is created to maintain
the comprehensive electronic medical record from both inpatient and outpatient encounters for
patients who obtain medical care at Washington University and BJC practice sites.
2. ClinPortal: ClinPortal is a clinical studies data management application developed to allow
PIs and study coordinators to develop and use electronic case report forms.
3. Tissue Suite: Tissue Suite is a comprehensive biospecimen informatics system which permits
users to track the collection, storage, quality assurance, and distribution of specimens as well
as the derivation and aliquotting of new specimens from existing ones (e.g. for DNA analysis).
For more information about each of these tools please visit
http://cbmi.wustl.edu/html/projects.html
1

Develop a sizeable body of professionals that understand and can apply the tools of biomedical
informatics to their respective investigative foci in order to accelerate research and the bench to
bedside transition.
POLICIES
Students taking the course for credit are required to attend both the lecture and laboratory components, to
take laboratory quizzes, complete short assignments and participate in a group project.
Short assignments are due the following week at the start of the laboratory session.
TEXTBOOKS
None. Reading materials for each lecture will be available at a later date
SOFTWARE
Access to the applications during the lab sessions will be via the computers in the 601B Becker library
computer lab.
Project Development on laptops or other computers will require:
WUCON access or a VPN account to access the applications.
A VPN account should be requested through your helpdesk for access the applications from offsite.
Adobe Flash Player 8.0
Available at http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/
COURSE GRADING
25% laboratory quizzes
25% laboratory short assignments
50% project presentation
We encourage you to work together on laboratory short assignments which will be assigned at the end of
some laboratory sessions and will be due the following week. Short laboratory quizzes will be given at
the end of learning sessions, and a group project must be developed, executed, and presented over the
course of the semester.
Letter grades: 90-100 = A, 80-89= B, 70-79 = C, 60-69 = D, <60 = F
COURSE TIMES and LOCATION
Wednesdays: 4:00- 5:00pm Farrell Learning and Training Center (please see class schedule)
5:15-7:00pm Becker Library (601B)
2
3
Introduction to Biomedical Informatics and its Application to Clinical and Translational Research
Lecture Schedule Fall 2009
Topic (4:00-5:00)
Location
Sept 1
4:00
Overview of Biomedical Informatics
Rakesh Nagarajan FLT room 211
5:15
Lab Overview
Rakesh Nagarajan 601B Becker Library
Sept 8
4:00
Electronic Health Records (EHR)-part I: Rakesh Nagarajan FLT room 211
Secondary use of the electronic health
record for research purposes
5:15
CIDER
George Bijoy
601B Becker Library
Sept 15
4:00
EHR part II: Quality Assurance/Quality
Tom Bailey
FLT room 202
Improvement (QA/QI) applications and
Note location change
Medical Decision Support
5:15
CIDER
George Bijoy
601B Becker Library
Sept 22
4:00
Study Design-part I (Best practices and
Margie Olsen
FLT room 211
caveats of using the EHR for
research/QA/QI purposes)
5:15
CIDER
George Bijoy
601B Becker Library
Next Week's Class is on Thursday.
Study Design
Ramesh Raghavan FLT room 202
Sept 30 4:00
5:15
CSD
Leslie McIntosh
Oct 6
4:00
Clinical studies overview and
Rakesh Nagarajan FLT room 211
management - Part I
5:15
ClinPortal
Snehil Gupta
601B Becker Library
Oct 13
4:00
Clinical studies overview and
Rakesh Nagarajan FLT room 211
management - Part II
5:15
caTissue
Dave Mulvihill
601B Becker Library
Oct 20
4:00
Study design best practices
Philip Miller
FLT room 211
5:15
ClinPortal/caTissue Integration
Snehil Gupta
601B Becker Library
Oct 27
4:00
Bioinformatics
Rakesh Nagarajan FLT room 211
5:15
ClinPortal/caTissue Query
601B Becker Library
Nov 3
4:00
Translational & Pathology Informatics
Mark Watson
FLT room 211
5:15
Project Development
601B Becker Library
Nov 10
4:00
Imaging Informatics
Fred Prior
FLT room 202
Note location change
5:15
Project Development
601B Becker Library
Nov 17
4:00
Public health/epidemiology
Graham Colditz
FLT room 211
5:15
Project Development
601B Becker Library
Nov 24
4:00
Thanksgiving
Dec 1
4:00
Public health/epidemiology
Tim Mcbride
FLT room 211
5:15
Project Development
601B Becker Library
Dec 8
4:00
Public health/epidemiology
Jay McDonald
FLT room 211
5:15
Project Presentations
FLT room 211
Dec 15
4:00
Project Presentations
FLT room 211
4