Thursday, July 26, 2012

Which Airports are Most Contagious? Let's Model It!

The Big Minds at MIT built an interesting model to determine which airports are more likely to support the spread of disease.

Abstract:  The spread of infectious diseases at the global scale is mediated by long-range human travel. Our ability to predict the impact of an outbreak on human health requires understanding the spatiotemporal signature of early-time spreading from a specific location. Here, we show that network topology, geography, traffic structure and individual mobility patterns are all essential for accurate predictions of disease spreading. Specifically, we study contagion dynamics through the air transportation network by means of a stochastic agent-tracking model that accounts for the spatial distribution of airports, detailed air traffic and the correlated nature of mobility patterns and waiting-time distributions of individual agents. From the simulation results and the empirical air-travel data, we formulate a metric of influential spreading––the geographic spreading centrality––which accounts for spatial organization and the hierarchical structure of the network traffic, and provides an accurate measure of the early-time spreading power of individual nodes.

Link to the Journal Article titled "A Metric of Influential Spreading during Contagion Dynamics through the Air Transportation Network"

Monday, July 23, 2012

$2.54 Trillion Spent on Healthcare in 2010

Want to know how the U.S. stacks up against the rest of the world relative to health/healthcare?  Check out the information at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (link below).

For instance, in 2010, we spent 17.6% of our GDP on healthcare.  


Who else spent a lot?  The Netherlands (12%) -- and they mandate the purchase of at least basic health insurance.

In 2010, our GDP was $14.4471 Trillion.  That's $2.54 TRILLION spent on healthcare in the US in 2010.

For comparison, The Netherlands GDP in 2010 was $774.2289 Billion, so they spent $92 Billion on healthcare in 2010.


Graphical comparison of the GDPs.  Red is the US.  Blue is The Netherlands.




Data from here, here, and other publicly available sources.



Computational Biology Model of Mycoplasma genitalium

It is interesting to think that it is 2012 and researchers are just now finishing a computer model of an organism -- in this case, the tiny parasite Mycoplasma genitalium.  We are quite a way from a complete model of a human being - much less an individualized model.  That said, steps like these are critical to advancing the science to that level.


From Stanford University:

In a breakthrough effort for computational biology, the world's first complete computer model of an organism has been completed, Stanford researchers reported last week in the journal Cell.

By encompassing the entirety of an organism in silico, the paper fulfills a longstanding goal for the field. Not only does the model allow researchers to address questions that aren't practical to examine otherwise, it represents a stepping-stone toward the use of computer-aided design in bioengineering and medicine. Link to the original article.

Friday, July 20, 2012

Why Medical Modeling Has Skeptics




This is an insightful article that presents several key reasons why biologists are skeptical of biomedical models.  These same issues and factors can probably be applied to just about every other healthcare area.   The usage trends in medical modeling and simulation are towards training and education, rather than community or individual care (regressive and predictive  models) because (I believe) there is an inherent distrust in mathematical models of soft tissue systems.

"Though few biologists or physicians will admit to skepticism (we couldn’t get any card-carrying skeptics to go on record for this story), modelers claim that skepticism is near-universal—popping up in grant evaluations, paper reviews, and interactions with experimentalists. “I have encountered a tremendous amount of skepticism for modeling,” says Grace Peng, PhD, a program director at the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering.



Modelers may assume that the problem of skepticism rests solely with experimentalists. But, in fact, modelers play an enabling role—in the way they treat non-modelers, present their results, and even build their models. Thus, overcoming skepticism is as much about changing the culture of modeling as it is about changing the minds of biomedical researchers.


It also turns out that skepticism is heterogeneous. The degree of skepticism varies greatly across different fields of biology and medicine; and skeptics themselves come in many different flavors. Different kinds of skepticism have diverse origins and may present unique obstacles for modelers. This article disentangles the different types of skeptics and suggests what modelers can learn from each."


Meet the Skeptics: Why Some Doubt Biomedical Models - and What it Takes to Win Them Over


Monday, July 16, 2012

MedGadget.com

Here's an interesting site for those of us who care about medical device development in the greater sense (not directly focused on modeling and simulation based tools).  It's MedGadget.com.  From the site:

Medgadget is an independent journal of the latest medical gadgets, technologies and discoveries.  Our website is written, edited and published by a group of MDs and biomed engineers.
This may be a helpful reference and review site for developers of medical modeling and simulation training and education tools.  Remember -- almost every tool and gadget requires some level of training in order to create a truly proficient user.