Ep.12: Dr. Tiffany Callahan on Genomics
Channel: HSCF
Date: 2021-04-28

#SmartCity​  #CityCouncil​  #Municipality​  Dr. Callahan has since completed her PhD from when the herein interview was conducted.  An academically published Computational Bioscience PhD Student at the University of Colorado Denver, Tiffany Callahan is one of the minds keeping global society afloat in the battle against the COVID-19 pandemic.  Her research focuses on enriching large scale sources of electronic health record data for publicly available sources of biomedical knowledge like biomedical ontologies and publicly available genomic data.  Tiffany leverages tools like knowledge graphs to derive novel insights about data that typically would not be considered to have significant relationships.  A question on the importance of data unification and shared APIs is posed to Tiffany.  Tiffany's response highlights the need for more data if society is to achieve any meaning medical research.  She also outlines the importance of pediatric health as not just a scaled down version of adult health but rather a field deserving of it's own specialization because children are essentially developing organisms with unique needs.  Tieho then supports this notion by suggesting that if public health systems excel at pediatric level then this becomes an investment in the long-run because the labor force becomes highly productive and globally competitive.  Tiffany then addresses the importance of IoT and GDPR as great frontiers for unlocking even more data sets.  She also advocates for the highest caution in managing patient privacy.  Lastly, Tiffany and Tieho agree that smart cities require a great focus on health and ergonomics as well as an education component on how citizens can use city facilities for their own prosperity.