Events Calendar

N-of-1 and Aggregated N-of-1 Trials: Motivation, Applications and Future Directions

This seminar of the Center for Quantitative Methods and Data Science (QM&DS), in partnership with the Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Research Design (BERD) Center at Tufts CTSI and the Data-Intensive Studies Center (DISC) at Tufts University, is Wednesday, March 2, 11:00AM-noon via Zoom. The topic is N-of-1 and Aggregated N-of-1 Trials: Motivation, Applications and Future Directions, presented by Nicholas Schork, PhD.

There is tremendous interest in advancing ‘personalized’ or ‘precision’ medicine — the idea that one can tailor more effective health interventions to an individual’s unique genetic, physiological, behavioral and exposure profile. Although there have been major success stories in personalized medicine, particularly in cancer treatment settings, testing personalized interventions requires non-traditional study designs such as N-of-1 (single subject) and aggregated N-of-1 studies. Dr. Schork describes the principals behind N-of-1 trials as well as strategies for pursuing them in comprehensive and efficient ways. In particular, he describes study designs that consider the effect of individual components making up a multiple component intervention, the sequential analysis of aggregated N-of-1 trials, ’systems physiology’ studies of intervention effects in individuals, and the broad use of guided smart phone apps to optimize mental health interventions for individuals.

Faculty

Nicholas Schork, PhD is a Deputy Director and Distinguished Professor of Quantitative Medicine at The Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), an affiliate of the City of Hope (COH) National Medical Center, and an Adjunct Professor of Medicine and Population Science at COH. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry and Biostatistics at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) as well as Adjunct Professor of Integrative Structural and Computational Biology at Scripps Research.

Prior to joining TGen, Dr. Schork held faculty positions at Scripps Research, the J. Craig Venter Institute, UCSD and Case Western Reserve University. Dr. Schork’s interests and expertise are in the quantitative aspects of human biology research, genetics, and integrated approaches to complex biological and medical problems. These interests include analyzing large biomedical data sets, developing systems-level approaches to the analysis of biomedical data, and the design of personalized clinical trials.

Dr. Schork has published more than 550 scientific articles and book chapters. He has mentored over 75 graduate students and post-doctoral fellows, has 12 patents, and has been involved in establishing over 10 different companies in the biomedical space. A member of several scientific journal editorial boards, Dr. Schork is a frequent participant in NIH-related steering committees and review boards. He is currently scientific director and a principal investigator for the NIA-sponsored Longevity Consortium and the Integrated Longevity OMICS initiative, two multi-million-dollar initiatives to identify and characterize genetically-mediated factors contributing to human longevity and healthspan. He is also a former member of the National Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) Food and Nutrition Board and current member of the NASEM special emphasis panel on diet and disease relationships. Dr. Schork received a BA, MA, MS and PhD all from the University of Michigan.

Details

Wednesday, March 2, 2022, 11:00AM-noon, via Zoom

Registration

To attend, please register here via Tufts CTSI I LEARN.

Download our presenter biographies and abstracts (PDF).

The Impact and Promise of Learning Health Systems

Mark your calendar for Translational Research Day 2022:

Tuesday, March 15
10:00AM-4:00PM (eastern time)
Online via Zoom

Registration

Registration for Translational Research Day 2022 has closed.

Morning Keynote

The morning keynote address will be given by Michael K. Gould, MD, MS of the Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine.

Closing Keynote

The closing keynote address will be given by Gordon Bernard, MD of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.

Agenda

• 10:00-10:15AM: Welcoming remarks
  • Harry Selker, MD, MSPH
    Dean and Principal Investigator, Tufts CTSI; Executive Director, Institute for Clinical Research and Health Policy Studies (ICRHPS), Tufts Medical Center
• 10:15-11:00AM: Keynote address
  • Michael K. Gould, MD, MS
    Director for Health Services Research and Implementation Science, Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine
    Research Associate Professor of Medicine, Keck School of Medicine of USC
    Senior Research Scientist, Kaiser Permanente
    Embedded Research in the Learning Healthcare Systems at Kaiser Permanente
    
• 11:00-11:05AM: Break
• 11:05AM-1:00PM: Scientific Talks
  • Alysse Wurcel, MD, MS, Tufts Medical Center
    Engaging Stakeholders to Improve Inpatient Healthcare for People Who Inject Drugs
  • Jenica Upshaw, MD, Tufts Medical Center
    Reducing Readmissions and Mortality for Patients with Heart Failure
  • Nicole H. Moraco, MD, MA, Lahey Hospital and Medical Center
    Filling the ICU Communication Gap
  • Neil Korsen, MD, MSc, Maine Medical Center
    Rob Chamberlin, MD, MBA, MaineHealth ACO
    How Do Primary Care Staff Spend Their Time? Preparing for Changes in Primary Care Reimbursement
  • Ronald Kulich, PhD, MS, Tufts School of Dental Medicine
    Development and Evaluation of an Interprofessional Controlled Substance Risk Training Program within Dentistry
• 1:00PM-1:30PM: Lunch break
• 1:30PM-3:00PM: Concurrent breakout sessions: Mini Research Studios
  • Session A: Addressing Tobacco Use Behavior in Young Adults with Psychosis
    David Weiss, PhD, Maine Medical Center Research Institute
  • Session B: Produce Prescriptions on Maternal and Birth Outcomes: A Food is Medicine Intervention Among Pregnant Women
    Perrie O’Tierney-Ginn, PhD, Tufts University/Tufts Medical Center
    Fang Fang Zhang, MD, PhD, Tufts University
• 3:00-3:05PM: Break
• 3:05-3:25PM: Closing Keynote
  • Gordon Bernard, MD
    Senior Associate Dean for Clinical Research
    Professor of Medicine
    Melinda Owen Bass Chair in Medicine
    Vanderbilt University School of Medicine
• 3:25-4:00PM: Leading Learning Health Systems Panel Discussion
  • Moderator: Harry Selker, MD, MSPH, Tufts CTSI and ICRHPS
  • Michael Dandorph, MHA, Tufts Medicine
  • Helen Boucher, MD, FACP, FIDSA, Tufts Medicine and Tufts University School of Medicine

Get Social

Look for #TranslationalTufts2022 on social media and join the conversation.

Interested in learning more about implementation science and dissemination and implementation strategies?

You are invited to a virtual Dissemination and Implementation Science Special Interest Group Meeting on Monday, March 21, 2022, 10:00-11:00AM.

In this session, the guest presenter and discussion leader will be Linda Hudson, ScD, MSPH. Dr. Hudson is the Associate Director of Integrating Underrepresented Populations in Research (IUPR) and the Director of Collaboration for Research Equity, Sustainability, and Trust (CREST). She will discuss how to use an anti-racist health equity lens when approaching D&I work, as well as sharing her experience working on CREST.

The session will also include a brief discussion of Baumann’s Reframing implementation Science to Address Inequities in Healthcare Delivery article. Please review it prior to attending.

You are also invited to read an optional article, Implementation Science Should Give Higher Priority to Health Equity.

Details

Date: Monday, March 21, 10:00AM-11:00AM, via Zoom

Registration

To receive the Zoom link to this event, please email Senior Project Manager Alyssa Cabrera, MPH.

Computational Cognitive Models of Behavior Change in the Real World and at Scale

This seminar of the Center for Quantitative Methods and Data Science (QM&DS), in partnership with the Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Research Design (BERD) Center at Tufts CTSI and the Data-Intensive Studies Center (DISC) at Tufts University, is Wednesday, March 30, 2:00-3:00PM via Zoom. The topic is Computational Cognitive Models of Behavior Change in the Real World and At Scale, presented by Peter Pirolli, PhD.

Psychology calls itself the science of behavior, but some have lamented that “cognitive psychology [has] never had much to say about the meaningful activities people perform in their daily lives, nor have they really intended to.” In this presentation, Dr. Pirolli discusses two threads of research on computational cognitive models of human behavior change in the ecology of everyday life:

• The first thread of research concerns models of health behavior change occurring in multi-week, in-the-world, experiments using mobile health applications designed to promote physical activity, stress reduction, and improved nutrition habits. These computational models, built in the ACT-R cognitive architecture, provide an integrated account of goal intentions, implementation intentions, self-efficacy, motivation, self-affirmation, and habit strengthening underlying more than a half dozen behavior change techniques.
• The second thread of research expands on ACT-R models of behavior change to address how humans responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. Heterogeneous behavioral responses over time and geographical regions depend on the individual beliefs and information consumption patterns of populations. To address the need for more precise and accurate epidemiological models, we are researching Psychologically Valid Agent models of human responses to epidemic information and non-pharmaceutical interventions during the pandemic.

Faculty

Peter Pirolli, PhD is currently a Senior Research Scientist at the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition. His research involves a mix of cognitive science, artificial intelligence, and human-computer interaction, with applications in digital health, sensemaking, and information foraging, among other things. Previously, Dr. Pirolli was at the Palo Alto Reseach Center, and was a Professor in the School of Education at UC Berkeley. He received his doctorate in cognitive psychology from Carnegie Mellon University in 1985. Dr. Pirolli received a B.Sc. in psychology and anthropology from Trent University. He has been elected as a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Psychological Association (Div 3 and Div 21), the Association for Psychological Science, the National Academy of Education, and the ACM Computer-Human Interaction Academy. Please see his book titled “Information Foraging Theory: Adaptive Interaction with Information.”

Details

Wednesday, March 30, 2022, 2:00-3:00PM, via Zoom

Registration

To attend, please register here via Tufts CTSI I LEARN.

Want turn a guilty pleasure into a quick, nutritious activity?

The National Council of Negro Women (NCNW)-Greater Boston Section and Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy have partnered to develop FRESH& – a monthly webinar series that will explore a range of nutrition topics. FRESH& is designed to engage Black women in discussing their diet and nutrition in a culturally competent, celebratory way. Each month attendees will explore topics like how to make healthy, culturally relevant meals, boost their immune systems through diet, and coping with stress through food.

This month, we are excited to present FRESH& Healthy Snacking with Sarah Kerrigan on Wednesday, March 30, 6:00PM-7:00PM EST.

FRESH& is on snack duty this month! Learn how to turn a guilty pleasure into a quick, nutritious activity with FRESH& Healthy Snacking. In honor of Women’s History Month, the snacks we make will be filled with nutrients that are especially beneficial to women. Sarah will prepare a Greek yogurt parfait, granola bars, and baked crunchy chickpeas. Follow along to make your snacks for the week.

Sarah Kerrigan is a graduate student at Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition Science & Policy getting her Master’s degree in Nutrition Interventions, Communication, & Behavior Change. She is a member of the Didactic Program in Dietetics at Simmons University. Sarah graduated from Providence College with a BA in Mathematics & Economics in 2020. After working in the finance field for a year, she decided to make a career change and pursue her true passion, nutrition. Sarah hopes to work as a Registered Dietitian working with athletes and those with disordered eating and eating disorders. She is passionate about helping people create a healthy relationship with food. In her free time, Sarah loves being outdoors. She enjoys running, hiking, or just sitting at the beach. We’ll be cheering for her in the 2022 Boston Marathon!

Details

Wednesday, March 30, 2022
6;00-7:00PM
Online (a link will and list of ingredients will be sent to those who register).

Registration

To attend, please register here.

The Greater Boston Section – National Council of Negro Women (GBS-NCNW) has partnered with Tufts Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) to build the Collaboration for Research, Equity, Sustainability, and Trust (CREST). CREST is an academic-community partnership that works with Black and Brown communities in the Greater Boston Area to improve health. We are proud to present the FRESH& series as a product of successful collaboration between Tufts and GBS-NCNW.