Title: “Integration of Transcriptomic Data and Electronic Medical Records Enable Investigation of the Previously Overlooked Role of the Immune System in Fibrotic Disorders”

Abstract:
There is increasing evidence that the immune system plays a causal role in a large number of diseases, including cancer, organ transplant, cardiac, neurodegenerative, psychiatric, autoimmune and infectious diseases. Current clinical practice does not yet take the immune status of a patient into account due to lack of data. Traditionally, in clinical practice, the status of the immune system has been measured with complete blood counts (CBCs). New analytical techniques such as statistical deconvolution of mixed tissue transcriptional profile enable estimation of various immune cell subtypes across multiple independent cohorts using existing data. We hypothesized that integration of these estimated immune cell proportions with CBCs can (1) can be prognostic marker of disease progression and severity in clinical practice, and (2) identify novel mechanisms of disease pathogenesis.

In this talk I will provide an example of using transcriptional data to predict monocytes as a prognostic marker from estimated immune cell proportions in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. We validated monocyte count as a prognostic marker for mortality using complete blood counts from medical records of over 25,000 patients with terminal fibrotic disorders in four organs. I will also show preliminary data that links monocytes to the pathogenesis of fibrosis across organs. In summary, availability of large amount of heterogeneous data and electronic medical records enable novel opportunities to link molecular and clinical data for improving clinical care and better understanding of disease pathogenesis.