Summary

About

Goal: I) biomedicine/healthcare; II) bioinformatics and other big data analytics; and III) medical/health policies. The current discordant policy response to the COVID-19 epidemic is a clear example of how a policy disconnect from scientific evidence and proper analytical tools can lead to disastrous public health outcomes. The problem of using scientific evidence to drive good policy decisions has been challenged recently by hyper-partisanship in the United States and elsewhere by parochial political aims and the rise of populist autocratic leaders. In a polity saturated with contradictory policy prescriptions in both the mass and social media, policy analysis based on that evidence can be entirely lost in the noise.

Mission: To bring together like-minded research faculty with different backgrounds including biology, medicine, biostatistics/informatics, mathematical modeling and big-data analytics to perform cutting-edge research with direct policy relevance. In particular, we aim to work collaboratively on the intersection of biomedicine and artificial intelligence (AI) to generate policy recommendations. We expect that these research projects will be supported by extramural research grants from top research funding agencies such as National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Science Foundation (NSF), as well as other private and public sources including foundations, industry partners and other governmental agencies.

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Contact

Email: School

Locations

George Mason University
Mason Square, Van Metre Hall, Room 520
3351 Fairfax Drive
Arlington, VA 22201
Phone: 703-993-8380
Fax: 703-993-8215

Web Links

• Website
• Twitter
• Facebook

Research

External Funding

NSF – Award: FAIN: / 2146067
2022-2026
Title: D-ISN: Evolution of Global Illicit Kidney Trade Networks: Identification, Reconstruction, and Disruption
Amount: $999,941
Center member(s): Koizumi, El-Amine,

NSF – ENG: SCH: / 2123683
2021 – 2025
Title: Collaborative Research: SCH: Optimal Desensitization Protocol in Support of a Kidney Paired Donation (KPD) System
Amount: $996,766 (including the award amount to GMU: $677,361, which will fund 1 to 2 GRA(s) for the next 4 years)
Center member(s): Koizumi, El-Amine,

DOD – Grants.gov ID#: GRANT13327183
2021 – 2024
Title: A Novel BRCA1 Binding Domain on the Estrogen Receptor-Alpha Overcomes Tamoxifen Resistance”
Amount: $1,570,977 (including 5% FTE to Co-PI: Koizumi, which will fund 1 GRA for the next 3 years)
Center member(s): Brown, Koizumi

The Korea Development Institute (KDI) School of Public Policy
2020 – 2021
Title: Network Labeling Optimization for Hidden Population Size Estimation
Amount: $20,000 (which will fund 1 GRA until the end of this year)
Center member(s): Koizumi, El-Amine,

NSF – EAGER: ISN: / 1838306
2018 – 2022
Title: Network Analysis and Opportunities for Disruption of Organ Trafficking
Amount: $350,000 (which will fund 1 GRA until the Spring 2022 semester)
Center member(s): Koizumi, Olds, El-Amine

NSF – OAC: / 1935984
2019 – 2023
Title: Mid-scale RI-1 (M1:IP): SAGE: A Software-Defined Sensor Network Amount: $160,000
Center member(s): Olds

Institute for Digital InnovAtion (IDIA) Seed Grant
2021 – 2023
Title: Understanding the Impact of Misinformation on Palliative Care Demand Using Machine Learning and Qualitative Methods
Amount: $40,000
Center member(s): Inoue, Hashemi, Kulkurni, Koizumi

Publications

Recent Publications (Since 2020)

• Froehlich, M., Koizumi, N., James, R., Christian, A. G. W., Choubey, A, Patel, S., Ortiz, J. and Siskind, E., “The Use of Vasopressors During Deceased Donor Pancreas Procurement Decreases the Risk of Pancreas Transplant Graft Failure”, Pancreas, [Accepted, May 2022] (IF: 3.33)

• Nicholas Robichaud, Jessica L. Rosenberg, James L. Olds “Revisiting NSF’s Founding Compromise”, Issues in Science and Technology, April 2022

• Serpico S., Parsikia, R., Goodarzi, A., James, R., Koizumi, N., and Ortiz, J. “Suicide Amongst Transplant Recipients: Trends and Unique Risk Factors”, Clin Transplant., April 2022;e14385. http://doi.org/10.1111/ctr.14669 (IF: 2.86)

• Akerlof, Karen L., Kristin MF Timm, Katherine E. Rowan, James L. Olds, and Julia Hathaway. “The Growth and Disciplinary Convergence of Environmental Communication: A Bibliometric Analysis of the Field (1970–2019).” Frontiers in Environmental Science (2022): 740.

• Chiodo, Ortiz C., Choubey, AP, Shrivastava, S., Koizumi, N., Nayebpour, M., Ortiz, J. “Preemptive renal transplant: too early is not always better—a national cohort study”. International Urology and Nephrology 2022, Jan. 20:1-1, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11255-021-03086-0 (IF: 2.37)

• Weaver, L., Espinales, J., Koizumi, N., Giffen Z., Schneider, D., Ortiz, J. MD “Multiple Organ Deceased Donation is Associated with Superior Graft and Transplant Recipient Outcomes Compared to Kidney-Only Donation”, Exp Clin Transplant 2022, Jan. 1;20(1):12-8. DOI: 10.6002/ect.2021.0371 (IF: 0.95)

• Siddique, A.B., Haynes, K.E., Kulkarni, R., and Li, M.H. Regional poverty and infection disease: early exploratory evidence from the COVID-19 pandemic. The Annals of Regional Science. 2022 Jan 25:1-28 (IF:2.65).

• Choubey A.P., Rady, E.W., Koizumi, N., Siddique, A.B., Wiederhold, P., Ortiz, J., “Disparate Formulations for Machine Perfusion, A Survey of Organ Procurement Organizations’ Medication Additives and Outcomes Analysis”, Exp Clin Transplant 2021, November 2121, 1;19(11):1124-32. DOI: 10.6002/ect.2021.0037 (IF: 0.95)

• Li, M.H., Siddique, A.B., Andalibi, A.* and Koizumi, N.* (* contributed equally to the article), “Analysis of Symptomology, Infectiveness, and Reinfections between Male and Female COVID-19 Patients: Evidence from Japanese Registry Data”, Atmosphere 2021, 12(11), 1528, 19 November 2021, https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos12111528(IF: 2.68)

• Choubey, A.P., Bullock, B., Choubey, A.S., Pai, K., Ortiz, A.C., Khan, S.A., Mishra, A., James, R., Koizumi, N.,Pearson, T. and Ortiz, J., “Transplant surgery departmental leaders do not represent workforce demographics especially among women and underrepresented minorities—A retrospective analysis”, The American Journal of Surgery, November 14, 2021, (IF: 2.57)

• Correa-Cabrera, G. and Koizumi, N. “Explicando las Caravanas Migrantes: ¿Hipótesis de Trabajo, Activismo Académico o Teorías Conspirativas” Frontera Norte: International Journal of Borders, Territories and Regions, 33, November 2021, DOI: 10.33679/rfn.v1i1.2197

• Blaiszik, Ben, Carlo Graziani, James L. Olds, and Ian Foster. “The Delta Variant Had Negligible Impact on COVID-19 Vaccine Effectiveness in the USA.” medRxiv (2021).

• Choubey, A.P., Bullock, B., Hoste, B., Ortiz A., Khan, S.A., Mishra, A., Pearson, T., Koizumi, N., Ortiz, J., “Diversity in American Society of Transplant Surgeons Governance: Equitable but Unequal” Exp Clin Transplant, September 2021, DOI: 10.6002/ect.2021.0111 PMID: 34498553 (IF: 0.85)

• Kabbani, Nadine, Kyle Brumfield, Patricia Sinclair, Arvind Ramanathan, Rita Colwell, and James L. Olds. “Mechanisms of Coupling between Angiotensin Converting Enzyme 2 and Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptors.” bioRxiv (2021).

• Correa-Cabrera G., Baxter P., Kulkarni R, and Koizumi N. “Messengers of a Drug War in the Cyberspace: The Case of Tamaulipas”, Small Wars Journal, August 2021

• Sproull, M., Koizumi, N., Petricoin, E., Koblentz, G.D., Kennedy, W.G. “The Impact of Radiation Dread on Mass Casualty Medical Management During a Radiological or Nuclear Event”, American Journal of Disaster Medicine, August 2021, 26;16(2):147-62. (IF: 1.91)

• Loss, L., Kelly, G., Koizumi, N., Siddique, A.B., Shreve, J., Markowiak, J., Nazzal, M., and Ortiz. J., “Rankings From US News and World Report Have Minimal Correlation With Kidney and Liver Transplant Recipient Survival Results From Retrospective Data”, Exp Clin Transplant, July 2021, DOI: 10.6002/ect.2021.0043 PMID: 34309500 (IF: 0.95)

• Brooks, J.T., Pierce A, McCarville, P., Sullivan, N., Rahimi-Saber, A., Payette, C., Popova, M., Koizumi, N., Pourmand, A., Yamane, D., “Video Case Review for Quality Improvement During Cardiac Arrest Resuscitation in the Emergency Department”, International Journal of Clinical Practice, June 2021, p.e14525. (IF: 2.61)

• Choubey, A.P., Pai, K., Khan, S., Mishra, A., Bullock, B., Sureddi, S., James, R., Siddique, A.B., Koizumi, N., and Ortiz, J. “Kidney Transplant Surgical Director Training: Urologists Represent a Functional Alternative to General Surgeons Running Head: Urologists in Transplant Surgery Workforce”, Clin Transplant., June 2021;e14385. https://doi.org/10.1111/ctr.14385 (IF: 2.86)

• Andalibi, A.*, Koizumi, N.*, Li, M.H., and Siddique A.B., (* contributed equally to the article) “Symptom and Age Homophilies in SARS-CoV-2 Transmission Networks during the First and Second Waves of the Pandemic in Japan”, Biology, June 2021, 10(6), 499; https://doi.org/10.3390/biology10060499 (IF: 5.01)

• Akerlof, Karen L., Taryn Bromser-Kloeden, Kristin Timm, Katherine E. Rowan, James L. Olds, Chris Clarke, Elizabeth Ban Rohring et al. “Categorizing professionals’ perspectives on environmental communication with implications for graduate education.” Environmental Communication 15, no. 4 (2021): 447-464.

• Kabbani, Nadine, and James L. Olds. “Nicotinic receptor targeting in physiological and environmental vulnerability: A whole of biosphere perspective.” Science of The Total Environment 780 (2021): 146642.

• Choubey, A.P., Reilly, M., Bullock, B., Ireland, M., Brown, M., Ortiz, A., Pai, K., Sureddi, S., Khan, S.A., Mishra, A., Pearson, T., Koizumi, N. and Ortiz, J. “The Academic Footprint of Women in Transplant Surgery: Leaky Pipeline Persists”, Transplantation, April 2021 (IF: 4.74)

• Damodaran, S., Bullock, B., Ekwenna, O., Nayebpour, M., Koizumi, N., Sindhwani, P., and Ortiz, J., “Risk Factors for Delayed Graft Function and Their Impact on Graft Outcomes in Live Donor Kidney Transplantation”, International Urology and Nephrology, 53(3), 439-446, January 2021 (IF: 1.84)

• Li, M.H., and Koizumi, N., “Network Contagion vs. Spatial Contagion: The Diffusion of EHR Incentive Programs in Physician Networks.”, Proceedings of the 54th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences: 2021: 3645-3653. (IF: 3.79).

• Olds, J., and Kabbani, N., “Is nicotine exposure linked to cardiopulmonary vulnerability to COVID-19 in the general population?”, The FEBS journal. 2020 Sep;287(17):3651-5. (IF: 5.5)

• Kabbani, N., and Olds, J. L. “Does COVID19 infect the brain? If so, smokers might be at a higher risk”, Molecular pharmacology, 2020 May 1;97(5):351-3 (IF: 4.4)

• Brumfield, Kyle D., Anwar Huq, Rita R. Colwell, James L. Olds, and Menu B. Leddy. “Microbial resolution of whole genome shotgun and 16S amplicon metagenomic sequencing using publicly available NEON data.” PLoS One 15, no. 2 (2020): e0228899.

• Khan, M.S., Koizumi, N., and Olds, J.L. “Biofixation of atmospheric nitrogen in the context of world staple crop production: Policy perspectives”. Science of The Total Environment. 2020 Jan 20;701:134945 (IF: 8.0)

• Brumfield, K.D., Huq, A., Colwell, R.R., Olds, J.L. and Leddy, M.B., “Microbial resolution of whole genome shotgun and 16S amplicon metagenomic sequencing using publicly available NEON data”,  PLoS One, 15(2), p.e0228899. PLoS One. 2020 Feb 13;15(2):e0228899. (IF: 3.2)

• Li, Meng-Hao. “Using Link Prediction Methods to Examine Networks of Co-occurring MeSH Terms in Zika and CRISPR Research”, In: Sundqvist A., Berget G., Nolin J., Skjerdingstad K. (eds) Sustainable Digital Communities. iConference 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 12051. Springer, Cham. pp. 782-789.0 (IF: 0.99

People

Center Directors

Jim Olds, University Professor, Schar School of Policy and Government (Schar)
Jim Olds is University Professor of Neuroscience and Public Policy in the Schar School of Policy and Government. His research is at the intersection of AI and macrosystems biology and is supported by the USAF. He served from 2014-2018 as head of the Biological Sciences Directorate at NSF. During the time, he was also NSF lead for President Obama’s White House BRAIN project, deputy lead for NSF on Vice President (current President) Biden’s Cancer Moonshot and co-chaired the White House Life Sciences Subcommittee of the National Science and Technology Council.