Wednesday, Oct. 2 | 12:30pm to 1:30pm | Ruffner 302
The School of Data Science hosted Eric D. Green, M.D., Ph.D., Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for a fireside chat with Phil Bourne, Dean of the School of Data Science.
Watch the Fireside Chat
By Meg Evett
The NIH is closely connected to UVA in more ways than one. In addition to being the number one source of funding for all research at the University, the NIH is where Eric Green and Phil Bourne, the Dean of the School of Data Science, first crossed paths. Bourne worked at the NIH for three years, as the Associate Director for Data Science, prior to coming to Charlottesville.
Green noted that there are two connections for him to the UVA School of Data Science—one scientific and one personal.
The scientific connection starts with the fact that Green has been an active genomics researcher in that field of study since 1987.
“I bleed genomics. In many ways, it is the poster child for big data coming out of biomedical research,” Green says. “There are lots of examples in my field of massive datasets, and I think genomics really helped formulate this notion of a field of data science.”
Green explained that the data generated from genomics began with the Human Genome Sequence, and now there millions of human genomes that have been generated. He added that researchers would not have called this big data in the beginning of genome sequencing, but would have said they were “overwhelmed with bioinformatics.” However, with the emergence of the term “big data,” and now data science, Green recognized that these massive datasets of genome sequences were exactly that.
“Data science is very relevant to the field of genomics,” Green stated. “There are areas of biomedical research that are becoming increasingly data intensive and therefore need the new tools of data science applied to them.”
On the personal side, Green has enjoyed seeing Bourne’s return to academia as Dean of the School of Data Science.
“We were disappointed that he left the NIH but thrilled that there was this incredible opportunity for him here at UVA, so I have a personal interest in what is happening,” Green said. “I have sat in awe watching all these incredible good things happen at the new school and these new opportunities for him.”
During the talk, Green first took attendees down memory lane.
“I think some people are shocked to see how prehistoric ‘data science’ was in genomics, when genomics first started,” Green says.
Following a look at how far data science and genomics have come, Green and Bourne unpacked challenges facing data science today. He will also discussed current projects within the NIH, and the issues and potential there.
Looking towards the future, Green emphasized the importance of increased collaboration between the NIH and the School of Data Science.
“The NIH increasingly recognizes that data science is becoming a mainstream part of biomedicine,” Green says. “Increasingly, we want to see, want to encourage, and want to fund more ambitious data science endeavors that will help biomedical researchers capitalize on these massive data sets that are being accumulated.”
The School of Data Science has been described as a “School without Walls,” with its focus on a multi-disciplinary approach bringing together minds with a variety of perspectives, experience, and expertise. Green sees this as key to making data science effective.
“One type of data in isolation is actually quite limiting,” Green ssays. “The real utility comes when you can take very large data sets of different types, integrate them, cross analyze them, and so forth.”
For Green, this integration of datasets is extremely relevant in his field of study. And it requires bringing together minds from biomedical and data science backgrounds.
“In my world, the best examples is genomic data and health data, like electronic medical record data, and the potential for discovery when you integrate them,” he says. “But how do you do that? That’s the data science job.”
