2025 Bioinformatics Symposium
Title: 2025 Inaugural GW Bioinformatics Symposium
When: April 29th 2025, 9am to 6pm
Venue: Talks: SEH B1220. Refreshments, lunch, and posters: Green wall area (SEH B1167)
Join us for a full-day, all-hands GW Bioinformatics Symposium featuring posters, talks, and roundtable discussions. Open to GW students, staff, and faculty!
NOTE: We have received nearly 130 registrations, while SEH B1220 has a seating capacity of 90. Be sure to arrive early to secure a spot. For those who cannot be accommodated in the main room, we’ve arranged an overflow space in GWCC 8040 Conference Room, where the sessions will be live-streamed.
REGISTRATION IS CLOSED. Event Registration: Space is limited. Please register by April 12th. 2025 for the event through this form. If you encounter any issues, please email Raja Mazumder (mazumder@gwu.edu) your name and the lab you are representing and he will register you.
ABSTRACT SUBMISSION IS CLOSED. Abstract submission: Please submit your abstract by April 12th. 2025 through REDCap
OPT-OUT LUNCH PICKUP. We’re excited by the overwhelming response. Almost 130 participants from nearly all GW schools have signed up. Please note that seating in the main room is limited to the first 90 attendees. We encourage you to arrive early to secure a seat. For those who arrive later, we’re working to set up a spillover room with TV monitors so everyone can still follow the sessions. Lunch will be provided for all attendees who plan to stay for most of the day. If you’re attending only briefly and do not plan to pick up lunch, please let us know to help minimize food waste. You can either fill out this form or email mazumder@gwu.edu. We appreciate your understanding and cooperation.
Abstract/Overview
The GW Bioinformatics Symposium on April 29, 2025, a full-day event is designed to bring together faculty, staff, and student bioinformatics researchers and also researchers who use bioinformatics in their labs, from across GW to foster networking, collaboration, and knowledge exchange. The symposium will feature talks from GW labs that focus on bioinformatics and related research, poster presentations, roundtable discussions, and sessions on resources, funding and career opportunities in bioinformatics. Topics will span bioinformatics, computational methods, IT/security, and training, highlighting the breadth of bioinformatics in various GW schools and centers. This event offers a unique opportunity for attendees to engage in meaningful discussions, explore potential collaborations, and stay informed about the latest advancements in the field. The symposium is a great way to connect with the GW bioinformatics community.
Poster
Poster setup: Poster numbers and poster category (AI/ML, Bioinformatics) will be distributed during registration.
Participants are invited to submit a brief poster abstract by March 31st at 11:59 PM (ET). We encourage submissions from bioinformatics labs and also other labs that do not primarily focus on bioinformatics but have research relevant to bioinformatics topics. A select few will be chosen for lightning talks. Due to the limited number of poster boards, priority will be given to ensure each lab/group has at least one designated board. If the number of submitted poster abstracts exceeds the available poster boards, additional posters may be printed as flyers with QR codes, enabling attendees to scan, view, or download them electronically.
Size: Poster sizes can be up to 48 (width) x 36 (height) inches.
Poster Abstract Submission Portal: Click here.
Poster Printing Instructions
Download the poster template from GW Research Day Resources: Poster Design & Layout.
After you create the PPT for your poster, request free poster printing from Gelman Library using this form.
Submit your printing request by April 15th.
Schedule (Talk Titles)
| Time | Duration | Topic | Presenter(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Morning Session
Topics: Registration, introduction, and health-related topics. | |||
| 8:30 - 9:00 AM | 30 min | Registration & coffee
Lead: Raechelle McCants, Jewel Dias
|
|
| 9 - 11:00 AM | 120 min | Welcome
Rong Li (Chair, Dept. BMM, SMHS) Alison Hall (Senior Assoc Dean for Res, SMHS) Raja Mazumder Anelia Horvath Talks (10 mins + questions) Session chairs: Anelia Horvath, Raja Mazumder |
1. Anelia Horvath (Biochemistry)
2. Ljubica Caldovic (Children’s) 3. Dae Young Kim (Children’s; Muhammad Rahman lab) 4. Seth Berger (Children’s) 5. Raja Mazumder (Biochemistry) 6. Yi-Wen Chen (Children’s) 7. Aintzane Santaquiteria Gil (Biology, Orti Lab) 8. *Marc Garbey (Neurology) Two 4 mins Poster Flash Talks 9. Jane Ulianova 10. Aiste Gulla |
| 11 - 11:15 AM | 15 min | Refreshment Break. | |
| 11:15 - 12:30 PM | 75 min | Talks (10 mins + questions)
Session chairs: Ali Rahnavard, Ljubica Caldovic |
1. Jo Lynne Rokita (Children’s)
2. Max Alekseyev (Milken) 3. Erika Hubbard (Crandall lab, Milken) 5. Ali R. Taheriyoun (Rahnavard Lab, Milken) 6. Hiroki Morizono (Children’s) One 4 mins Poster Flash Talk 7. Vania Ballesteros Prieto |
| 12:30 - 2 PM | 90 min | Lunch and poster session
Lead: Anelia Horvath, Raechelle McCants, Jewel Dias |
Poster Judging Committee:
Anelia Horvath Ali Rahnavard Hiroki Morizono Yi-Wen Chen Jimmy Saw |
| Afternoon Session
Topics: Breadth of bioinformatics in biological research; IT/security; Training | |||
| 2:00 - 3:30 PM | 90 min | Talks (10 mins + questions)
Session Chairs: Howie Huang, Jimmy Saw, Chen Zeng 3:10 PM remarks Evangeline J. Downie (Associate Dean for Research, CCAS) |
1. Mohammad Hammas Saeed (Howie Huang Lab, Engineering)
2. Nan Wu (ECE, Engineering) 3. Aya Zirikly (Computer Science, GW/JHU) 4. Chen Zeng (Physics) 5. Weiqun Peng (Physics) 6. Shekhar Nagar (Jimmy Saw Lab, Biology) Two 4 mins Poster Flash Talks 7. Chelcie Puetz 8. Kai Leung (Adam) Wong |
| 3: 30 - 4:30 PM | 60 min | Session Chair: Jonathon Keeney.
Co-chairs: Hiroki Morizono, Anelia Horvath
|
Clark Gaylord (Director, Research Technology Services)
Brian Choi (MFA) Anelia Horvath (MGPC core/Bioinformatics support) Jack Villani (GW Genomics Core) Ali Rahnavard (CBI Analytics) Hiroki Morizono (Children's) |
| 4:30 - 6:00 PM | Networking event, poster prizes, and refreshments | Anelia Horvath
Jonathon Keeney Raja Mazumder Keith Crandall | |
*Talk titles TBD
Presentation/Discussion Sessions
There will be a Q&A session and a networking event at the end of the workshop.
Scientific Organizing Committee
Raja Mazumder (Symposium Chair), Anelia Horvath, Hiroki Morizono, Ljubica Caldovic, Keith Crandall, Jorge Sepulveda, Howie Huang, Chen Zeng, Jimmy Saw, Clark Gaylord.
Logistics Organizing Committee
Raja Mazumder, Anelia Horvath, Raechelle McCants, Jewel Das. Student volunteers: Jane, Sofia, Allison, Chloe, Trupri and Lincoln.
Talk Titles
| Name | Department | School | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jo Lynne Rokita | Pediatrics | CNH | Accelerating discovery and target identification for pediatric brain tumors through open-source platforms and tools |
| Erika Hubbard | Bioinformatics and Biostatistics | SPH | Machine Learning to Determine Endotypes of Lupus |
| Raja Mazumder | Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine | SMHS | Integrating Biomedical Knowledgebases and Clinical Data for ML/AI-Powered Insights |
| Jack Villani | GW Genomics Core | SPH | GW Genomics Core: An Introduction & Overview (panel discussion) |
| Ayah Zirikly | Computer Science | SEAS/Johns Hopkins University | Developments in NLP and AI for Mental Health: Insights from the Last Decade and Future Directions – A Focus on the CLPsych Workshop |
| Weiqun Peng | Department of Physics | CCAS | Finding structures and their associated functions in genome wide of profiles of chromatin architecture |
| Nan Wu | Electrical and Computer Engineering | SEAS | Directed Graph Representation Learning for Circuits, Boolean Networks, and Beyond |
| Seth Berger | Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine / Pediatrics | SMHS | Blindspots in Clinical Genetic Testing: Integration of Multiomics to Improve Diagnostic Yields |
| Ali Reza Taheriyoun | Biostatistics and Bioinformatics | SPH | Dynamics of Gut Microbiome and Metabolome of Moderate and Severe Obesity Patients Under Sleeve Gastrectomy |
| Yi-Wen Chen | Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine / Pediatrics | SMHS | From gene to treatment: omics approaches for understanding facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy |
| Shekhar Nagar | Biological Sciences | CCAS | Metabolic flexibility and dissemination of antibiotic resistomes from Actinobacteria in Hawaii hydrothermal steam vents |
| Dae Young Kim | Center for Translational Research | CNH | mhGPT: A Lightweight Domain-Specific Language Model for Mental Health Analysis |
| Anelia Horvath | Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine | SMHS | AI driven Functional SNV Discovery from long read Single-Cell RNA-Seq Data |
| Ljubica Caldovic | Center for Genetic Medicine Research | CNH | Active Learning of Data Science and Bioinformtics |
| Max Alekseyev | Mathematics / Biostatistics & Bioinformatics | CCAS/SPH | Bioinformatics Meets Quantum Informatics: from Genome Rearrangements to Weingarten Calculus |
| Aintzane Santaquiteria Gil | Department of Biological Sciences | CCAS | Using comparative genomics to link genes with convergently evolved traits. |
| Chen Zeng | Department of Physics | CCAS | Modeling RNA-protein Interactions with network guided machine learning |
| Mohammad Hammas Saeed | Electrical and Computer Engineering | SEAS | AI for Good: Leveraging Graph-Based Methods and Large Language Models to Address Real-World Challenges |
| Hiroki Morizono | Center for Genetic Medicine Research | CNH | Biomedical data resources at Children's National |
| Marc Garbey/Henry Kaminski | Neurology & Rehabilitation Medicine | MFA | Moving towards a digital twin for myasthenia gravis (tentative title) |
Acknowledgments
Sponsors: Dept. of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine (coffee, refreshments, lunch, poster prizes), IBS (poster boards), Milken Institute School of Public Health (happy hour, poster prizes).
Contact
For questions about registration, abstract submission or general inquiries, please contact:
Raja Mazumder: mazumder@gwu.edu
Poster Presentations
Poster setup: Poster numbers and poster category (AI/ML, Bioinformatics) will be distributed during registration.
| Name | Presentation Title |
|---|---|
| Sunisha Harish | AI-Driven Drug Response Prediction in Cancer Using Long-Read Single-Cell RNA-Seq |
| Dae Young Kim | mhGPT: A Lightweight Domain-Specific Language Model for Mental Health Analysis |
| Vania Ballesteros Prieto | Uncovering the Contributions of Expressed Genetic Variants, Isoforms, and RNA Editing to Tumor Heterogeneity via Long-Read Single-Cell RNA-Seq Analysis |
| Sarah Tiufekchiev-Grieco | Promoting Resolution of Inflammation as a Potential Therapy for DMD |
| Karli Gilbert | Machine Learning Models Predict Treatment Outcome from Serum Proteins in Patients with Myasthenia Gravis that received Thymectomy |
| Reny Mathew | Identification of anti-helminthic drug resistance associated Quantitative trait loci (QTLs) in the canine hookworm, Ancylostoma caninum: A pooled-sequencing approach |
| Jo Lynne Rokita | Accelerating discovery and target identification for pediatric brain tumors through open-source platforms and tools |
| Henry Kaminski | Moving towards a digital twin for myasthenia gravis |
| Huai Chin Chiang | Single-Cell Transcriptomic and Phenotypic Profiling Reveals T Cell Dysfunction in BRCA1 Mutation Carriers |
| Lori Krammer | GW-FEAST: a federated ecosystem for data analysis and machine learning |
| Medha Kurukunda | Analyzing the Use of Artificial Intelligence to Enhance the Identification of Food Insecure Areas in Washington, D.C. |
| Christie Rose Woodside | Bridging Genomics and Preparedness: Regulatory-Grade Genomics and Quality Control Metrics and Analysis for Emerging and Circulating Avian Influenza in 2024-2025 |
| Aiste Gulla, MD, PhD | Clinical Outcomes and Long-Term Survival of Pancreatic Cancers by Histological Sub-Type in the Epic Cosmos Database: Results from 2010-2025 |
| Jane Ulianova | Comparison of alignment performance between the T2T-CHM13 and GRCh38/hg38 reference genome assemblies for RNAseq |
| Zhe Yu | Automated Tracking of Freezing Behavior in Paired House Mice Using DeepLabCut |
| Zhe Yu | Behavioral Bioinformatics for Temporal Analysis of Freezing Behavior in Dyad Mice |
| Karim Ismat | Generation of a single nuclei RNA sequencing atlas of dysferlin-deficient skeletal muscle |
| Kai Leung (Adam) Wong | An Experience of carrying out GPU-accelerated Genomic Analysis on Pegasus |
| Gabriel Batzli | Defining macrophage heterogeneity in murine skin wounds during inflammation |
| Hovhannes Arestakesyan | Recurrent Somatic scSNVs in Single-Cell RNA-Seq: Insights into Tumor Heterogeneity and RNA-Level Variants |
| Chloe Sachs | Secretome distinguishes spectrum of NF1 associated peripheral nerve sheath tumors |
| Nikhil Arethiya | A Time-Series Approach to Glucose-Based Participant Classification |
| Siera Martinez | Hetero-GNN Link Prediction of RNA Editing in Single Cells |
| Renxi Li | Thirty-day outcomes of infrainguinal bypass surgery with concurrent iliac artery stenting in patients with chronic limb-threatening ischemia |
| Matthew Mollerus | ResLens: Detecting Antibiotic Resistance Genes with Large Language Models |
| Parimala Nagaraj | Cybersecurity at the Intersection of Genomics and Data Science: Securing the Future of Bioinformatics |
| Shekhar Nagar | Metabolic flexibility and dissemination of antibiotic resistomes from Actinobacteria in Hawaii hydrothermal steam vents |
| Cristina Fenollar Ferrer | Functional impact of PIP2 on the Serotonin Transporter (SERT) |
| Ali Taheriyoun | Dynamics of gut microbiome and metabolome of obesity patients under sleeve gastrectomy |
| Irene Zohn | Next Generation sequencing approaches to understand developmental defects |
| Max Alekseyev | Bioinformatics meets Quantum Informatics: from genome rearrangements to Weingarten calculus |
| Lausanne Lee Oliver | Phylogenetic analysis of novel phages from Hawaiian fumaroles |
| Mahdi Baghbanzadeh | seqLens: optimizing language models for genomic predictions |
| Dezhao Fu | varLens - enhancers genetic testing using language models |
| Lilly Shaw | Uncovering Shared and Unique Biomarkers Across 23 Cancer Types Using The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) |
| Daniall Masood | BiomarkerKB: A Comprehensive Biomarker Knowledgebase |
| Ljubica Caldovic | Active Learning of Data Science and Bioinformatics |
| Urnisha Bhuiyan | GlyGen: A Comprehensive Resource for Glycoscience Data Integration and Discovery |
| Surajit Bhattacharya | Redefining Human Airway Biology in Children from The Top Down: Unique Features of the Nasal Airway Epithelium. |
| Anelia Horvath | A Machine Learning Approach to Functional SNV Discovery via Isoform-Aware Single-Cell RNA-Seq |
| Christie Rose Woodside | Enhanced QC Metrics for Reference-Grade Genomic Data |
| Yi-Wen Chen | From gene to treatment: omics approaches for understanding facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy |
| Pia Sen | Investigating the role of bacteriophage diversity in Hawaiian steam vent microbial communities |
| Emily Williams* | TRIM28 regulates endogenous retroviral element expression in prostate cancer |
| Cadina Powell | Be Smart And Use Smartphones for Telemedicine: Narrative Review |
| Xinyang Zhang | Meta-analytic microbiome target discovery for immune checkpoint inhibitor response in advanced melanoma |
| Cyrus Chun Hong Au Yeung | Leveraging Large Language Models for Scalable Glycan-Disease Relation Extraction |
| Ashley Garrison | Gut Microbiome Composition as an Indicator of Preclinical Alzheimer's Disease |
| Chelcie Puetz | Combined Neuroinflammatory and Neurovascular Molecular Screening for Early Detection of Blood-Brain Barrier Dysfunction in Patients with Traumatic Brain Injury |
| Ranojoy Chatterjee | cellSight: Enhanced Single-Cell Analysis Platform with Comprehensive Cell Communication Analysis. |
| Ishita Chopra | Characterizing Cell Interaction and Gene Expression |