NASHVILLE, TN – July 28, 2025 – The School of Applied Computational Sciences (SACS) at Meharry Medical College will host the inaugural L’OMAR Scientific Retreat on August 4, 2025. This hybrid event, running from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., will highlight cutting-edge research in omics data mining and algorithmic reasoning from Dr. Bishnu Sarker’s Laboratory of Omics Mining and Algorithmic Reasoning (L’OMAR).
The retreat features presentations from leading computational scientists, including keynote speakers Dr. Volodomyr Melnykov from the University of Alabama discussing advanced clustering methods for categorical sequences, Dr. Semhar Michael from South Dakota State University presenting geographic trends in end-stage kidney disease, and Dr. Yana Melnykov exploring contaminated transformation models.
L’OMAR graduate researchers Jaylin Dyson (‘25) and Bradford Patton (‘24) will showcase innovative work on knowledge graph applications for drug repurposing, protein function prediction, and multi-omics data integration.
L’OMAR represents a significant research initiative focused on developing explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) systems to analyze multi-omics data – including genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics – with applications in disease biology understanding, drug target identification, and pandemic response. The laboratory’s name, derived from the Bengali word for “immortal,” reflects its mission to advance health equity through computational innovations that promote longer, healthier lives.
“Artificial intelligence has a great role in scientific discovery…the true power of AI is in interdisciplinary research,” says Dr. Bishnu Sarker, Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Data Science and director of L’OMAR. The lab’s NIH R25 and NSF-funded research focuses particularly on knowledge graph techniques that integrate diverse biological data sources.
“What’s fascinating is how data science is not limited to lab work alone – it has the potential to transform countless other domains.”
The event will be held in person at the SACS Large Classroom (3401 West End Avenue, Nashville) and simultaneously broadcast via Microsoft Teams. Virtual participants may join using Meeting ID 258 195 023 765 and Passcode 2mU2Qn7K.
