Colorado Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (CCTSI)
Jayashree Kalpathy-Cramer, PhD, came to the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus in June 2022 to launch the new Division of Artificial Medical Intelligence in Ophthalmology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. In her role, Kalpathy-Cramer translates novel artificial intelligence (AI) methods into effective patient care practices at the Sue Anschutz-Rodgers Eye Center.
“Translational Informatics is the study and application of existing data to bridge new ways to improve diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of disease,” said CCTSI Director Ron Sokol, MD. “We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Kalpathy-Cramer to the CCTSI. With her deep experience in engineering, AI, and bioinformatics, she will help facilitate and lead groundbreaking research across our institute.”
“I am truly honored to be appointed to the role of director of Health Informatics at the CCTSI. This role presents an incredible opportunity to continue to foster collaboration and innovation and drive forward our mission of enhancing translational research and education,” said Kalpathy-Cramer. “It is an exciting time for our institution as we leverage informatics and AI to harness the power of data to advance scientific discoveries and translate them into meaningful solutions that impact patient care.”
Kalpathy-Cramer has already accomplished a great deal in the two years since she has been on the Anschutz Medical Campus. The Michael J. Fox Foundation awarded her a grant to research the use of AI to identify biomarkers of Parkinson’s disease, a progressive disorder that affects the nervous system and causes uncontrollable movements, such as shaking, throughout the body.
She recently won an Anschutz Accelerator Award for her project “Oculomics as a Biomarker for Comprehensive and Non-Invasive Patient Health Assessment.” Oculomics is the study of the association between ophthalmic biomarkers (changes or abnormalities in the eye) and systemic health or disease states. She and her multidisciplinary team aim to bring AI-assisted ophthalmic imaging outside of ophthalmology to improve patient health and clinical outcomes, meet quality metrics and reduce health system costs. This work will further advance the field of oculomics; and, if successful, it could become an inexpensive and mainstream tool to assess patient health.
Before she came to Colorado, Dr. Kalpathy-Cramer directed the Quantitative Translational Imaging in Medicine (QTIM) lab and the Center for Machine Learning at the Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, and was an associate professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School.
“Even during my relatively brief time at CU, I have seen what a phenomenal resource the CCTSI is,” Kalpathy-Cramer said. “I look forward to learning more from the CCTSI community about the opportunities that informatics has for moving their research forward and how the informatics core can best support that.”
“In terms of her work with us at the CCTSI, she is jumping in feet first! Already, she is helping to develop the agenda of the CCTSI’s upcoming CU-CSU Summit,” said Sokol. The topic this year is Research Innovations in Health AI. For more information on how to register or submit an abstract to present a poster, click here.
