BCIG Annual Report

NIH Biomedical Computing Interest Group (BCIG)

Annual Report 2002
by
Jim DeLeo, Chairman

THE BIG IDEA: “When you think about bringing intelligent computing to Life, think B(C)IG!”

MISSION: To encourage, support and promote good and appropriate computing methodology and technology in all aspects of biomedical research, development, and patient care, and technology sharing in support of the overall NIH mission. This is to be accomplished through lectures by experts, journal club meetings, sponsored classes, Internet dialog, social gatherings, and a general promotion of camaraderie among immediate and extended NIH biomedical research community members interested and engaged in computational aspects of modern medicine.

FUNCTION: The primary purpose of BCIG is to further novel uses of computers and automation in support of clinical care and biomedical research. The group will seek to go beyond the use of computers to enhance or facilitate traditional tasks. We will promote computational methods as a research tool. Particular areas of interest include data visualization, data mining, machine learning, neural networks, receiver operating characteristic methodology, genetic algorithms, novel data models, novel automation systems, component software development, modern statistical methodology, data base registries, hospital and community health care information systems, and biomedical computing technology transfer.

MANAGEMENT: The NIH BCIG program was originally conceived and initiated by Jim DeLeo, Alan T. Remaley, M.D., Ph.D., Stephen J. Rosenfeld, M.D., and James Sorace, M.D. in 1999. In 2000 it became an official NIH Interest Group under the leadership of Jim DeLeo who has remained the BCIG Chairman to date.

ACHIEVEMENTS: Calendar year 2002 has been a year of tremendous growth and expansion in terms of participation, event advertising, popularity, program quality, program quantity, and significance for the NIH BCIG. The listserver mailing list has grown from 70 to 300 individuals (more than 4-fold) over last year. BCIG programs are now advertised on the BCIG web site and listserver, as well as in the NIH Record (Yellow Sheet) and the CIT Training web site. Event attendance has more than tripled in terms of total-person-hours over last year. Tutorials on scientific computing topics were added late in the year, and a full program including monthly coffee/brainstorming, tutorial, and speaker sessions has been planned for 2003. The themes of many of these sessions have a direct relationship with the NIH Clinical Center's CRIS project, particularly the upcoming data warehousing and data mining aspects. Considering that most of the support for the BCIG is voluntary, this record of achievement is rather amazing and a tribute to the fact that the BCIG is serving a real need, namely the establishment of a broad-based biomedical computing community at the NIH as a forum for those interested in various aspects of biomedical computing to congregate and to share ideas and knowledge.