"About Dr. Siadaty"


1. EDUCATION AND RESEARCH EXPERIENCE

Dr. Siadaty has been formally trained in two critically related fields of science, medicine and statistics. This is a rare combination. This multi-disciplinary training has prepared Dr. Siadaty to attack problems from a multi-disciplinary perspective that few other researchers have. Thus his background gives him rare abilities to tackle the most difficult problems of science that might confound someone who had only a medical background or only a statistics background.

As the dissertation for his M.D. degree thesis, Dr. Siadaty designed the "Work Load" model, a new mathematical model to evaluate the efficiency of hospital bed utilization in Iran. It received the maximum possible score. The model has been presented in the Third Iranian Statistics Conference in July 1996, and the article has been published in the Iranian Medical Council's magazine. Moreover, Dr. Siadaty conducted a national research project on Hospital Bed Efficiency (1997). This project has been funded by the Ministry of Health and Medical Education. The results of this national survey have been published and are widely notified by the health managers of the country.

Dr. Siadaty applied his solid research methodology skills to animal experimental design, during his two-year intensive research activity in University of Texas, Houston School of Medicine, Texas. Dr. Siadaty designed a series of optimized controlled lab studies to detect and quantify thermal heterogeneity of human atherosclerotic plaques (fat build ups in the coronary arteries that rupture and cause heart attack). He also designed phantom and animal (rabbit and dog) studies to evaluate feasibility and performance of a thermosensor basket catheter for thermal detection of vulnerable atherosclerotic plaques. Patents have been issued to Dr. Siadaty’s research group by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), and subsequently commercial companies have been started, one of which produced over $60 millions in revenue in 2004.

Dr. Siadaty has designed a probabilistic decision support system for acutely ill patients, for triage purposes. It is accessible via Internet and is fully automated. A call center staffed with a few registered nurses is integrated as a safety net. It has been designed for Dr Red Duke, Inc. a Houston-based Internet company, in 1999. During this period Dr. Siadaty was appointed Chief Scientific Officer, Dr Red Duke Inc., Houston, Texas, and managed a team of 15 doctors to gather the medical knowledge for the implementation of the triage system.

Dr. Siadaty subsequently moved to University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, where he invented unique analytic methods. Dr. Siadaty’s work on delayed entry (left truncation) in Survival Analysis resulted in refined methods that were then applied to Department of Agriculture Forestry Service survey from Indiana State. Survival analysis is a branch of statistics that deals with death in biological organisms and failure in mechanical systems. This topic is called reliability theory or reliability analysis in engineering. Death or failure is called an "event" in the survival analysis literature, and so models of death or failure are generically termed time-to-event models.

Also, Dr. Siadaty designed a statistical model to accommodate three dimensional correlation matrix of a before-after study with multiple items for each construct (when using Generalized Estimating Equations to estimate a longitudinal extension of a Generalized Linear Model). This new method was applied to several large-scale health services research projects, mainly funded by Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and the National Institutes of Health. Two high impact papers have been published after this invention.

Dr. Siadaty implemented a statistical process to evaluate "goodness of adjustment" of several competing models for ranking quality of care in nursing homes nationwide (borrowing “direct method” of adjustment from epidemiology, and adding bootstrapping on top of it), for Division of Health Services Research and Policy, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.

In year 2002 Dr. Siadaty joined the University of Virginia (UVa), Charlottesville, VA. He is Assistant Professor of Clinical Informatics and Biostatistics, in the School of Medicine. During the past 3 years, he has published numerous scientific papers, filed patent applications with USPTO, started yet another new commercial company, and presented his research works in national and international conferences and meetings. Currently Dr. Siadaty’s research is focused on pooling two huge bodies of information, the biomedical knowledge (an instance of which is PubMed of National Library of medicine, with 15 million published papers indexed) and patient data (such as UVa Clinical Data Repository with over one million patients digitized data), with the goal to discover novel regularities, and generate new hypotheses worthy of focused research. The ultimate goal would be to provide a tool that could lead to new basic and applied discoveries that would advance research, clinical care, and improve human health.

Dr. Siadaty continues to invent and propose new analytic methodologies for research in biomedicine. His methodology paper presenting the Proportional Odds Ratio model for the first time, has been rated among the top 10 most read papers in Biomedical Research Methodology. More than 4300 reprint request have been received during a mere 6-month period of its publication.

 

2. MAJOR PRIZES OR AWARDS

    The great importance of Dr. Siadaty’s work is reflected in his ability to win independent research funding. In March 2005, National Institutes of Health (NIH) of U.S. Department of Health and Human Services favorably reviewed Dr. Siadaty’s grant proposal “Fusing patient data and medical knowledge for discovery”, application number 1 R01 LM008826-01. The proposal is a multi-disciplinary project totaling over 2.5 million dollars over five years. The review comments show the enthusiasm of the NIH review group, Biomedical Library and Informatics Review Committee, to approve the prize and allocate the budget, a major breakthrough for a young university professor at the age of Dr. Siadaty.

Here we quote portions of the NIH Summary Statement. Under section ‘Significance’, reviewers of the NIH expressed the following about Dr. Siadaty’s grant proposal:

“Significance - This application addresses the important problem of processing patient data and the scientific literature to assist with knowledge discovery. … The application is ambitious and is focused on scientific data discovery by data mining patient databases and knowledge mining biomedical literature databases. The problem is extremely challenging and of high significance to the medical and basic science research communities. If successfully implemented, it will certainly advance knowledge discovery in the medical sciences. The investigators have described an interesting overall design for accomplishing this as well as identified several existing technologies for implementing it. … Data mining, ontology development, and grid technologies have a great future in health sciences discoveries.”

In section ‘Innovation’, the NIH reviewers wrote:

“Innovation - It is an intriguing idea to combine data mining of patient databases with text mining of the scientific literature. … The overall design of linking data and knowledge mining for scientific discovery is innovative.

The Principal Investigator (Dr. Siadaty) is to be commended for pulling together a team of well-qualified and experienced investigators. … The project application lists an impressive array of mathematical and computational techniques, many of them are state-of-the-art.”

 

3. PUBLISHED MATERIAL ABOUT DR. SIADATY IN MAJOR MEDIA

Dr. Siadaty’s research and innovations have been used by numerous scientists, and has been cited in hundreds of papers in major scientific journals with international circulation. This link shows 134 scientific papers, which have cited Dr. Siadaty and his research results, published in a variety of national and international scientific journals. These published materials about Dr. Siadaty are a solid proof of the breadth of applicability and coverage of Dr. Siadaty’s extraordinary research career among his peers. Here are listed a sample of 10 (out of 134) scientific papers, which are referring to Dr. Siadaty.
  1. Hak E., Buskens E., Van Essen G.A., De Bakker D.H., Grobbee D.E., Tacken M.A.J.B., Van Hout B.A., Verheij T.J.M. Clinical effectiveness of influenza vaccination in persons younger than 65 years with high-risk medical conditions: The PRISMA study, (2005) Archives of Internal Medicine, 165 3, Pages 274-280.
  2. Marchesi S., Lupattelli G., Lombardini R., Sensini A., Siepi D., Mannarino M., Vaudo G., Mannarino E. Acute inflammatory state during influenza infection and endothelial function, (2005) Atherosclerosis, 178 2, Pages 345-350.
  3. Gurevich V.S. Influenza, autoimmunity and atherogenesis ,(2005) Autoimmunity Reviews, 4 2, Pages 101-105.
  4. Ajani U.A., Ford E.S., Mokdad A.H. Examining the coverage of influenza vaccination among people with cardiovascular disease in the United States, (2005) American Heart Journal, 149 2, Pages 254-259.
  5. Nilsson J., Hansson G.K., Shah P.K. Immunomodulation of atherosclerosis: Implications for vaccine development, (2005) Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology, 25 1, Pages 18-28.
  6. Madjid M., Awan I., Ali M., Frazier L., Casscells W. Influenza and atherosclerosis: Vaccination for cardiovascular disease prevention, (2005) Expert Opinion on Biological Therapy, 5 1, Pages 91-96.
  7. Wong C.-M., Chan K.-P., Hedley A.J., Peiris J.S.M. Influenza-associated mortality in Hong Kong ,(2004) Clinical Infectious Diseases, 39 11, Pages 1611-1617.
  8. Wang C.-S., Wang S.-T., Lai C.-T., Lin L.-J., Lee C.-T., Chou P. Reducing major cause-specific hospitalization rates and shortening hospital stays after influenza vaccination ,(2004) Clinical Infectious Diseases, 39 11, Pages 1604-1610.
  9. Shah P.K., Chyu K.-Y., Fredrikson G.N., Nilsson J. Vaccination for atherosclerosis: A novel therapeutic paradigm, (2004) Expert Review of Vaccines, 3 6, Pages 711-716.
  10. Ohashi R., Mu H., Yao Q., Chen C. Atherosclerosis: Immunopathogenesis and immunotherapy, (2004) Medical Science Monitor, 10 11.



4. DR. SIADATY'S ORIGINAL RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS

4.1. Top ten most read papers

The scientific community has also received Dr. Siadaty’s methodology innovation on the Proportional Odds Ratio model for meta-analysis of diagnostic tests, extraordinarily well. During the first 6 months of the publication, an extraordinary 4300 requests for Dr. Siadaty’s paper have been received by the publisher, placing Dr. Siadaty’s paper among the top ten most read papers in the Biomedical Research Methodology.

4.2. International requests for reprints of Dr. Siadaty’s works

Requests for reprints of Dr. Siadaty's research work and papers are numerous, and come from top academic and research organizations and universities, from countries all over the world. This is a list of a few requests that Dr. Siadaty has received.

4.3. Patents issued by the USPTO

Dr. Siadaty’s original scientific contributions are exemplified in the patent applications awarded by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

Patent number US6454707, publication date 2002-09-24, describes methods of predicting mortality or imminent death in patients with congestive heart failure, which include detecting changes in the patient's temperature and/or the detection of hypothermia. The invention also relates to devices and kits for implementation of these methods.

Patent number WO2004023102, publication date 2004-03-18, is directed toward methods of identifying progression of coronary stenosis in a patient over a time interval of interest. In various embodiment, first and second angiograms are performed in a region of interest in a patient to produce a first and second sets of angiographic data, where the second set of angiographic data reflects passage of a time interval of interest after performing the first angiogram. The first set of angiographic data is compared to the second set of angiographic data to determine whether stenosis in progressing in the region of interest.

In addition to the two issued patents described above, Dr. Siadaty has pending patent applications with the USPTO. His pending patent “Science Discovery System” filed by the University of Virginia Patent Foundation (UVAPF) has already attracted companies such as the IBM, trying to license the patent from the UVAPF.

These patents are the basis of starting up two companies, Volcano Corporation of Rancho Cordova, California; and Intelligent Search Technologies (IST) of Charlottesville, Virginia; where Dr. Siadaty is a founder and shareholder. Volcano Corporation specializes in diagnostic methods and medical devices for early detection and prevention of heart attack. IST is started to design and develop sophisticated informatics tools for knowledge discovery and data analysis. The prototype products Seargest and IntegriLink have shown usability of such as advanced technology for U.S. as well as international researchers in medicine and biology. Both of the companies are very promising, and only three years after start-up, Volcano Corporation has had over $60 Million in revenue in 2004.

 
            
5. DR. SIADATY'S AUTHORSHIP OF SCHOLARLY ARTICLES

Dr. Siadaty’s publication record also clearly shows the leadership he has taken in his field. Dr. Siadaty has published in world's leading biomedical journals. He has published more than 40 papers in English language scientific journals. The topics of his papers show the multidisciplinary nature of his researches. Dr. Siadaty has published numerous book chapters and scientific papers in Farsi prior to coming to the US.

Also, Dr. Siadaty’s papers continue to elicit excellent comments from peer-reviewers of his papers during the course of publication. Here are opinions of two anonymous reviewers coded as 1374A and 1374B by the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology.

 “With great interest I read the well written paper by Siadaty et al, on an improved methodology for meta-analyses of competing diagnostic tests. The proposed methods are certain relevant to researchers involved in meta-analysis of diagnostic studies. I compliment the authors for their constructive work.”

“This article is a very nice job of applying generalized estimating equations to the analysis of summary of ROC curves.  The methodology is well thought out and described in a satisfactory manner especially for statisticians.”

The number and extent of citations to Dr. Siadaty’s papers testify to the importance and impact of his papers. There are more than 100 published papers by other scientists in various academic and research centers all over the world, referring and citing Dr. Siadaty’s papers.

Below is a selected list of 17 of Dr. Siadaty’s published research works in professional or major trade publications. There are more than 40 published articles of Dr. Siadaty. Upon request we will send you Dr. Siadaty’s scholarly publications.


First authorship

Title: Proportional odds ratio model for comparison of diagnostic tests in meta-analysis
Author(s): Siadaty MS, Shu J
Source: BMC Med Res Methodol. 2004 Dec 10;4(1):27

Title: Repeated-measures modeling improved comparison of diagnostic tests in meta-analysis of dependent studies
Author(s): Siadaty MS, Philbrick JT, Heim SW, Schectman JM
Source: JOURNAL OF CLINICAL EPIDEMIOLOGY 57 (7): 698-711 JUL 2004

Senior authorship

Title: Papaverine prolongs patency of peripheral arterial catheters in neonates
Author(s): Griffin MP, Siadaty MS
Source: JOURNAL OF PEDIATRICS 146 (1): 62-65 JAN 2005

Title: The effect of evercare on hospital use
Author(s): Kane RL, Keckhafer G, Flood S, Bershadsky B, Siadaty MS
Source: JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN GERIATRICS SOCIETY 51 (10): 1427-1434 OCT 2003

Title: Outcomes of managed care of dually eligible older persons
Author(s): Kane RL, Homyak P, Bershadsky B, Lum YS, Siadaty MS
Source: GERONTOLOGIST 43 (2): 165-174 APR 2003

Co-authorship

Title: Hypothermia is a bedside predictor of imminent death in patients with congestive heart failure
Author(s): Casscells W, Vasseghi MF, Siadaty MS, Madjid M, Siddiqui H, Lal B, Payvar S
Source: Am Heart J. 2005 May;149(5):927-33

Title: The effect of physician feedback and an action checklist on diabetes care measures
Author(s): Schectman JM, Schorling JB, Nadkarni MM, Lyman JA, Siadaty MS, Voss JD
Source: AMERICAN JOURNAL OF MEDICAL QUALITY 19 (5): 207-213 SEP-OCT 2004

Title: D-dimer testing for deep venous thrombosis: A metaanalysis
Author(s): Heim SW, Schectman JM, Siadaty MS, Philbrick JT
Source: CLINICAL CHEMISTRY 50 (7): 1136-1147 JUL 2004

Title: Effect of acute myocardial infarction on the utility of fractional flow reserve for the physiologic assessment of the severity of coronary artery narrowing
Author(s): McClish JC, Ragosta M, Powers ER, Barringhaus KG, Gimple LW, Fischer J, Garnett J, Siadaty M, Sarembock IJ, Samady H
Source: AMERICAN JOURNAL OF CARDIOLOGY 93 (9): 1102-1106 MAY 1 2004

Title: GeneX Va: VBC open source microarray database and analysis software
Author(s): Lee JK, Laudeman T, Kanter J, James T, Siadaty MS, Knaus WA, Prorok A, Bao YD, Freeman B, Puiu D, Wen LM, Buck GA, Schlauch K, Weller J, Fox JW
Source: BIOTECHNIQUES 36 (4): 634-+ APR 2004

Title: Incremental value of combined perfusion and function over perfusion alone by gated SPECT myocardial perfusion imaging for detection of severe three-vessel coronary artery disease
Author(s): Lima RSL, Watson DD, Goode AR, Siadaty MS, Ragosta M, Beller GA, Samady H
Source: JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN COLLEGE OF CARDIOLOGY 42 (1): 64-70 JUL 2 2003

Title: Plaque blush, branch location, and calcification are angiographic predictors of progression of mild to moderate coronary stenoses
Author(s): Casscells W, Hassan K, Vaseghi MF, Siadaty MS, Naghavi M, Kirkeeide RL, Hassan MR, Madjid M
Source: AMERICAN HEART JOURNAL 145 (5): 813-820 MAY 2003

Title: Thermography basket catheter: In vivo measurement of the temperature of atherosclerotic plaques for detection of vulnerable plaques
Author(s): Naghavi M, Madjid M, Gul K, Siadaty MS, Litovsky S, Willerson JT, Casscells SW
Source: CATHETERIZATION AND CARDIOVASCULAR INTERVENTIONS 59 (1): 52-59 MAY 2003

Title: Influenza infection exerts prominent inflammatory and thrombotic effects on the atherosclerotic plaques of apolipoprotein E-deficient mice
Author(s): Naghavi M, Wyde P, Litovsky S, Madjid M, Akhtar A, Naguib S, Siadaty MS, Sanati S, Casscells W
Source: CIRCULATION 107 (5): 762-768 FEB 11 2003

Title: pH heterogeneity of human and rabbit atherosclerotic plaques; a new insight into detection of vulnerable plaque
Author(s): Naghavi M, John R, Naguib S, Siadaty MS, Grasu R, Kurian KC, van Winkle WB, Soller B, Litovsky S, Madjid M, Willerson JT, Casscells W
Source: ATHEROSCLEROSIS 164 (1): 27-35 SEP 2002

Title: Expression of inflammatory modulator COX-2 in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma and its relationship to pathologic and clinical parameters
Author(s): Merati K, Siadaty MS, Andea A, Sarkar F, Ben-Josef E, Mohammad R, Philip P, Shields AF, Vaitkevicius V, Grignon DJ, Adsay NV
Source: AMERICAN JOURNAL OF CLINICAL ONCOLOGY-CANCER CLINICAL TRIALS 24 (5): 447-452 OCT 2001

Title: Association of influenza vaccination and reduced risk of recurrent myocardial infarction
Author(s): Naghavi M, Barlas Z, Siadaty S, Naguib S, Madjid M, Casscells W
Source: CIRCULATION 102 (25): 3039-3045 DEC 19 2000



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