Structure-Activity Relationships and Networks: Signal Detection using Text Mining in Large Document Repositories

GRAND Seminar 12:00 noon, April 12, Tue., 2011, ENGR 4801

Sithu D Sudarsan
FDA

Host:

Huzefa Rangwala

Abstract:

Data mining has traditionally been used with structured data, which is only about 10 - 15 percent of all data in any organization. The remaining 80 - 85 percent data is in the form of free text documents with unstructured narratives. The Center for Devices and Radiological Health at the US Food and Drug Administration receives a large number of regulatory documents related to premarket and postmarket activities for medical devices. One such document is a medical device adverse event report (MDR) that contains multiple narratives related to any adverse event related to a medical device. These MDR narratives need to be analyzed by mining them to identify safety signals. Here, signal refers to either a change in the pattern of occurrence of the adverse event or identification of an unknown adverse event for a given device. The Center receives as many as a few hundred thousand MDRs every year. This repository is growing and of the order of millions of documents running into several terabytes. A text mining framework has been developed by the software research team to identify, and evaluate signals as a research project. The presentation covers the challenges, and solution approach of the framework. Some of the mining results with respect to the MDR repository are also presented.

Bio:

Sithu D Sudarsan, a Visiting Scientist with the Division of Electrical and Software Engineering in the Office of Science and Engineering Laboratories at the Center for Devices and Radiological Health of US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In his current role, Sithu is responsible for the Design and Development of Semantic Text Mining Framework with his colleagues. Sithu obtained his Ph. D. from UALR, Little Rock for his thesis titled, “Signal Detection Framework using Semantic Text Mining Techniques”. He received “Outstanding Ph D Graduate for the year 2010” from UALR. Prior to joining FDA he held several positions at leading research laboratories in India. He completed his Bachelor's in Electronics & Communication Engineering, and Mater's in Systems & Information as well as Post Graduate Diploma in Management and Diploma in Production Management.

As an R&D engineer, over the last 20 years he has worked in different fields including Communication, Networks, Information Security, Data Mining and Multi-media. He has received several research grants and has been on several committees that monitor funded R&D projects. He was an active member of IT Standardization Sub Committee (ITSSC) of Ministry of Defence representing M/s Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), India. He was also member of Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) committee on Information Security, LTD38 as a nominated representative of BEL. As a life member of IETE, he contributes to the professional development society and held different positions of IETE Noida Chapter during 1998-2001. He has over 50 papers/publications to his credit at international and national levels. He has conducted a number of seminars and workshops in his area of work.