Vincent Mei, M.P.H., and Owen Visser, M.S., both doctoral candidates in biostatistics at the University of Florida College of Public Health and Health Professions, connected with global leaders in bioinformatics and gave oral presentations at the joint annual meeting of the Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology and the European Conference on Computational Biology held last month in Liverpool, England.
Mei and Visser each presented as part of the Critical Assessment of Massive Data Analysis, or CAMDA, track. Mei’s presentation with co-author Yulin Li, a UF data management analyst, was entitled “Toward the Development of a Novel and Comprehensive Gut Health Index.” Their project achieved a 72% balanced accuracy, improving on existing gut health indices.
Visser’s presentation, “Antimicrobial Resistance Prediction via Binary Ensemble Classifier,” described the identification of strain-level markers for antimicrobial resistance. The presentation earned Visser and supporting author and fellow biostatistics Ph.D. student Victor Agboli a third place award.
Mei, Visser and their co-authors plan to submit their results for peer-reviewed publication in the near future. Both are mentored by Somnath Datta, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Biostatistics.
“Dr. Datta’s guidance has been essential throughout our research,” Mei said.