| | | |

Artificial Intelligence Technologies

BioIntelligence

Research in Biointelligence is focused on developing and advancing information technologies for use in new applications that will improve the quality of health care.

Current Projects

NRC-Spain Joint Project on Bioinformatics Research
NRC GHI (Genomics & Health Initiative) Cancer Genomics Program

BioIntelligence research overlaps with the principles of artificial intelligence and knowledge-based systems and involves research in automated data mining, as well as understanding and applying key techniques from Intelligent Decision Support Systems. It also involves discovering methods to structure and disseminate new knowledge discovered from genomics and proteomics data mining applications, and integrating it with other forms of knowledge, such as clinical documents and patient information available through medical labs, pharmaceutical companies, or other medical organizations.

Many human diseases are fundamentally caused by impaired functioning of proteins in cells or abnormal growth of cells. This occurs as a result of “unfavourable” mutations in the DNA sequence along a certain segment of the genome.

Our primary focus is to apply and develop innovative informatics and artificial intelligence technologies to uncover discernable DNA/RNA variation patterns that could be used to:

Predict the susceptibility of a person to a disease.
Categorize patients according to their therapeutic response and the severity of their illness.

The new knowledge discovered is to be structured and disseminated to:

Pharmaceutical researchers to assist in the development of new medications
Biological and clinical researchers to enable further understanding of diseases
The software industry to develop clinical tools for early detection, accurate diagnosis and prognosis, and effective therapeutic management of diseases

Our secondary focus is to pioneer the development of intelligent clinical tools for the use of the medical industry. We will develop an effective and efficient software architecture and algorithms to integrate the newly discovered genomics knowledge and knowledge from electronic health records, clinical guidelines, clinicians’ expertise, and drug databases into an intelligent clinical decision support system. We envision providing a decision support system that will produce the following benefits:

Better disease screening using patient DNA/RNA profiles
More responsive therapeutic management using patient DNA/RNA profiles
Automatic generation of patients’ health conditions and drug reaction alerts
Automatic recommendation of clinical guidelines
Intelligent support for evidence-based medicine

This research area is the core of our research in the NRC-Spain collaborative project. It is also a major part of a proposal submitted (June 2004) for funding under phase III of the Genomics and Health Initiative (GHI). We expect that this research will benefit medical groups, leading to intelligent diagnoses, drug validations, and treatments. Both the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario and the Canadian Leukemia Research Group are interested in this framework. By participating in this research, medical research groups can obtain a better understanding of diseases, helping to define more accurate screening and more responsive treatments for patients.

NRC-Spain Joint Project on Bioinformatics Research

A new joint project on Bioinformatics Research was established with Spain on April 1, 2004 and will continue until March 31, 2007. The project is a collaboration between NRC’s Institutes for Information Technology (NRC-IIT), Biological Sciences (NRC-IBS) and Biotechnology Research (NRC-BRI), as well as Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, Centro Nacional de Biotecnologia – Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Madrid (CNB) and Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Oncológicas, Madrid (CNIO).

This new project will develop new methodologies, techniques and tools suitable for the analysis of functional genomics and proteomics data with the aim of building bioinformatics systems that can provide support for intelligent decision-making in the biological and medical fields (Intelligent Decision Support). These innovative technologies will enable the generation and analyses of large volumes of laboratory and clinical data and provide support for more intelligent disease classification,diagnosis and therapy. The resulting techniques can advance the field of medicine, contribute to biological research and provide support for future health care in areas such as pathology and laboratory medicine, pharmacogenomics and toxicogenomics.

NRC GHI (Genomics & Health Initiative) Cancer Genomics Program

The overall goal of this program is to discover and develop targeted therapeutic approaches to cancer treatment that are built upon a close linkage between molecular therapy, and molecular imaging and diagnosis. This will enable physicians to adapt therapy to the specific individual with the disease, thus decreasing incapacities, frailty and suffering resulting from inappropriate or delayed treatment. Since this could change the management of cancer patients both in and outside Canada, the economic spin-offs for Canada are potentially tremendous.

Participants:

Research Contact

Dr. Abolfazl Famili (Fazel)
Research Officer
Integrated Reasoning
NRC Institute for Information Technology
1200 Montreal Road
Building M-50, Room 368
Ottawa, ON K1A 0R6
Telephone: +1 (613) 993-8554
Fax: +1 (613) 952-0215
E-mail: Fazel.Famili@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca

Business Contact

Dr. George Forester
Business Development Officer
Business Development Office, NCR
NRC Institute for Information Technology
1200 Montreal Road
Building M-50, Room 203
Ottawa, ON K1A 0R6
Telephone: +1 (613) 993-3478
Fax: +1 (613) 952-0074
E-mail: George.Forester@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca