A team that includes two VCU School of Business researchers is among 15 that have received start-up funding from the VCU Convergence Team Planning Grant Program, sponsored by the Office of University Convergence Initiatives. The program is designed for transdisciplinary teams to address society’s most “wicked problems,” which defy single-discipline solutions.
One-Ki Daniel Lee, Ph.D., associate professor of information systems, is the team lead. The other team members are Xunyu Chen, Ph.D., assistant professor of information systems, and Won Sok Lee, M.D., assistant professor of pathology in the VCU School of Medicine and affiliated with Richmond Veterans Affairs Medical Center.
"I'm proud of Drs. Lee and Chen for pursuing this,” said Mayoor “Max” Mohan, Ph.D., associate dean for strategic affairs and research initiatives in the VCU School of Business. “Problems like the one they’re tackling can't be solved from inside a single discipline, which is why transdisciplinary research sits at the heart of our Opportunity 2030 strategic plan.”
The team will explore whether current advances in machine learning and AI can improve ferritin blood tests by creating a personalized “normal” range for measuring how much iron is stored in a patient’s body. It would be based on each person’s unique characteristics such as ethnicity, underlying health conditions, current medications and more, Lee said, and may shift over time in response to the patient’s changing condition.
A low-ferritin reading means an iron deficiency, which can lead to fatigue and anemia; a high-ferritin reading may indicate inflammation. Conditions that cause inflammation include liver disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and some types of cancer. Inaccurate diagnoses can lead to inappropriate and delayed treatments and cause adverse outcomes and increased healthcare costs, Lee said. Current tests provide a broad range for normal, which is derived mostly from standard statistical methods with a limited sample population, Lee said.
“This line of inquiry began with a chance encounter between a business researcher and a medical doctor,” Lee said. “We shared a common question: How can AI advance our work and society? A patient-specific normal reading will advance clinical decision-making and healthcare delivery, leading to better patient outcomes.”
Said Mohan: “This partnership with the School of Medicine shows what happens when business scholarship reaches beyond its own walls: research with the potential to improve clinical decisions and patients' lives."
The name of the team’s project is "AI-Driven Dynamic and Contextualized Reference Range Determination: For the Case of Ferritin Reference Range."
“The submission from Dr. Lee and colleagues impressed our reviewers for addressing a complex challenge that inherently requires a transdisciplinary approach,” said Tim Luckritz Marquis, Ph.D., associate director for VCU Convergence in Academic Affairs & Student Success, Office of the Provost. “This is a characteristic that lies at the heart of the Convergence mission.”
To read more about the VCU Convergence Team Planning Grant Program and projects funded, go here.