Precision Medicine Hackathon

Data engineering workflows are essential for managing and extracting insights from large-scale datasets, but challenges like data quality, security, and computational limitations are key considerations, especially with sensitive information such as patient health data.

On Friday, October 18th to Saturday, October 19th, the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in the College of Engineering and Computer Science at FAU, hosted a hackathon using the All of Us dataset—a vast repository of patient health records—inviting students to address these issues.

Participants designed innovative tools, protocols, and best practices to advance precision medicine, tackling hurdles like data bias, uneven availability, and fairness in predictive models to support individualized healthcare solutions. Teams developed software prototypes or present architectural designs based on their research and stakeholder interviews.

The event, sponsored by Dell Technologies (Gold Sponsor) and ModMed (Silver Sponsor), with support from industry partners like Memorial Health, VA Health West Palm Beach, and Aventusoft, featured 20 teams comprised of 100 students across various disciplines competing for top honors. To help prepare, students participated in workshops on October 18-19, where they received guidance on project pitching from acclaimed entrepreneur Howard Anderson and Kevin Cox, Director of the Adams Center for Entrepreneurship. Three teams walked away with prizes of $10K. The winners are:

First Place 

• Project: COPD Identification and Non-COPD Risk Profiling: A Holistic Predictive Model Base
• Students: Elise Neubarth, Omair Faqah, Sher Ali, Mohammad Shehroz Ashraf

Second Place

• Project: All of Us
• Students: Natasha Wooding-Sansberro, Tatiana Wooding-Sansberro, Ishmael Avery

Third Place

• Project: Predicting and Reducing Polypharmacy Risks in Healthcare
• Students: Jaya Kumar Gontine, Prasad Nagineni, Suresh Puchagatla, Roshan Mallipeddi