Precision Medicine Initiative
Turning data into decisions: Developing the next practice in cardiovacular care
About Us
Data is a powerful tool in health care. It can be harnessed to predict future health, develop clinical decision-making tools and improve patient care.
The aim of the Libin Precision Medicine Initiative (LPMI) is to support and enhance cardiovascular health research in Calgary and more broadly across the province. LPMI accomplishes this by:
- Maintaining data linkages to construct and update the Core Data Model.
- Assembling research-ready, project-specific data outputs.
- Providing guidance and building infrastructure for acquiring and adhering to administrative, security and privacy requirements.
Together, these will help scale the transformation of health data into clinical insights.
Priorities
LPMI has a simple aim – to enhance cardiovascular health research. We have set the following priorities to work towards this goal:
How we are achieving this:
Core Data Model: LPMI has invested in the development of a data pipeline to link, de-identify and pre-process cardiac data into an architected, patient-centered, linked data model. LPMI is working to add new source data to the model and can refresh the model as new data becomes available.
Data Harmonization: LPMI is working to create standard data definitions for research use. On a small scale, this means that the Core Data Model can be transformed in the same way for different research questions and populations so that variables are consistent across studies. On a larger scale, this means system interoperability for external validation and scaling of research beyond Calgary.
Data Packaging: LPMI is building reusable, modular code to rapidly transform the Core Data Model into research-ready data packets. Project-specific data packets can be rapidly constructed, enabling LPMI to meet the needs of Libin research priorities while continuing to put resources towards development.
INSIGHT Clinic Program
The INSIGHT program collects patient-reported measures (e.g., symptoms, health-related quality of life) at point-of-care in Calgary Zone cardiac clinics. Patient reported outcomes are linked into the Core Data Model, to support the integration of the patient perspective into clinical decision-making and risk-stratification research in alignment with AHS’s principles of patient- and family-centered care.
Data Expertise: LPMI works with requestors to align project goals with data. LPMI helps to bridge the gap between clinical language administrative health data.
Administrative Guidance: One of the administrative priorities of health research is ensuring compliance with various privacy and ethics regulations. LPMI provides guidance for researchers as they submit for approvals from research ethics boards and for data sharing agreements with the data custodian, Alberta Health Services
Compute Infrastructure: LPMI is working to build secure data storage and a safe virtual environment to uphold and exceed data sharing protocols while simultaneously enhancing access and security.
Improving healthcare is a long journey that depends on continuously learning from patients and gaining more experience so we can do better. LPMI has built a team and the foundational data systems to help shape the future of patient-centered healthcare.
Dr. James White
Director, Precision Medicine Initiative
Our Team
Director, Precision Medicine Initiative
Dr. James White
Dr. James White is a clinician-scientist and cardiologist, a professor of Medicine in the Departments of Cardiac Sciences and Diagnostic Imaging, and the director of the Stephenson Cardiac Imaging Centre and the Libin Precision Medicine Initiative. Dr. White is interested in translational clinical research focused on personalized cardiovascular care. This work aims to develop prognostic tools leveraging the full value of diagnostic testing data. This work is supported by the Cardiovascular Imaging Registry of Calgary (CIROC), a large prospective data capture initiative launched in 2015 engaging patients referred for diagnostic testing across Calgary. Dr. White has received grant supported through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Heart and Stroke Foundation, National Institutes of Health (NIH), Alberta Innovates and MITACS. He currently supervises a team of postdoctoral fellows, PhD and masters students in the Department of Cardiovascular and Respiratory Science.
Associate Director, Precision Medicine Initiative
Dr. Melanie King
Dr. Melanie King, PhD, leads the Libin Precision Medicine Initiative and facilitates the integration, governance and analysis of data for cardiovascular research in collaboration with the Department of Cardiac Sciences, the Centre for Health Informatics and the Mozell Family Analysis Core. Dr. King is an education and program specialist with a masters in Nursing and 10 years of experience in global health and remote clinical care. She holds a PhD in Education with expertise in the adoption of advanced data innovations in the health professions.
If you want to know more, or if you have questions or ideas about your practice or research that could be addressed using existing data sources, please reach out to Melanie at Melanie.King1@ucalgary.ca.
Manager, Strategic Partnerships
Jacqueline Flewitt
Jacqueline (Jackie) is dedicated to fostering collaborations and partnerships within the Libin Precision Medicine Initiative, helping bridge research teams and data resources to drive innovation in precision medicine. With a master’s degree in biomedical engineering, Jackie has focused her career in cardiovascular imaging research. For over 15 years at the Stephenson Cardiovascular Imaging Centre, she coordinated a diverse range of research efforts from experimental physiology to clinical implementation in collaboration with local, national, and international partners. Jackie brought this expertise to the Montreal Heart Institute, where she established the Cardiovascular MR research program. Returning to Calgary, Jackie focused on developing CIROC (the Cardiovascular Imaging Registry of Calgary), a key initiative that has laid the groundwork for the Libin Precision Medicine Initiative. Her work continues to support innovative approaches to leveraging data and imaging for advancing cardiovascular care and research.
Research Manager, Precision Medicine Initiative
Dr. Rhys Beaudry
Dr. Rhys Beaudry has a PhD in Applied Physiology and 10 years of cardiovascular research experience in cancer, heart failure and COVID-19 patients. His previous research projects included international collaborations with clinicians and academic researchers involving a spectrum of cardiac patient groups and cardiovascular imaging techniques. Rhys is responsible for developing and instituting patient facing tools for data collection in The PULSE Registry project.
Senior Analyst, Alberta Health Services
Patrick Feng
Patrick Feng is a senior analyst within the Provincial Research Data Services team at Alberta Health Services. He works collaboratively with the Libin Precision Medicine Initiative team, the AHS Data and Analytics team and Mozell Family Analysis Core to optimize access and use of cardiac data for care improvements and research to improve patient outcomes. Patrick is working on one of the core Precision Medicine Initiatives, the Libin Cardiac Schema, which is designed to build a schema that includes most cardiac related datasets to assist researchers in accessing, managing and analyzing cardiac health-care data. Patrick is also interested in applying advanced machine learning methods for personalized cardiac disease outcomes prediction to guide clinical decision-making for precision medicine.
Data Analyst, Quality & Transformation
Augustine Amakiri, PhD
Augustine is a bioinformatician and data enthusiast with over a decade of experience in multi-omics data analysis, pipeline development, automation and data governance. He has worked extensively in precision medicine, leveraging his expertise in machine learning and cloud computing to optimize research workflows. In his role with LPMI, he develops data products, ensures data quality, and implements governance frameworks for managing large-scale clinical datasets. He is passionate about integrating multi-omics data and advanced analytics to drive innovation in precision medicine and improve patient outcomes.
Jr. Data Engineer
Julian Neves
Julian has a masters degree in bioinformatics, and a background in geometric morphometrics and genomics. He has several years of experience working with and managing multivariate datasets. Julian works with the Precision Medicine Initiative ETL pipeline, and is an appreciator of an organized and well-documented database.
Technical Lead, Data Platforms
David Aponte, PhD
David completed his PhD in Medical Science with the Hallgrímsson lab at the University of Calgary. There he developed an interest in democratizing data and analyses as a strategy to make research have a wider impact with more reproducibility. As technical lead at LPMI/PDP, he is responsible for bridging software development efforts between the Libin Precision Medicine Initiative and Personalized Diagnostic Program as they build components of the Manta platform. He also works with the broader stakeholders at the University of Calgary, Alberta Health Services, and other partners to develop the implementation strategies for the platform.
Program Coordinator
Kirsten Penrose
Kirsten holds a master’s degree in Kinesiology and brings extensive experience in program coordination within the fields of health and research. Currently, she serves as Program Coordinator for both the Libin Precision Medicine Initiative and the Women’s Cardiovascular Health Initiative, where she provides critical support and coordination for program development, research projects, and stakeholder engagement. With several years of experience in coordinating complex, multi-faceted projects, Kirsten is dedicated to advancing innovative approaches to healthcare and supporting research that improves patient outcomes.
Project Coordinator
Katie Bessel, MSc
Katie has a master’s degree in biomedical technology and a background in clinical operations. She brings experience in study coordination and clinical data management. Katie works closely with Rhys to support the data needs of cardiac patients, staff, and clinicians.