By NewsBits
The USA based interdisciplinary Scientific Research Honor Society, Sigma Xi, has nominated Tony Kabilan Okeke, the Nigerian born science wizkid and 2018 Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) National Science Quiz Champion, for full membership of the Honor Society.
The letter from the Society signed by the Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer, Jamie Vernon, and Manager of Membership and Chapters, Daniela Carlson, said Tony got the nomination in recognition of his scholarly achievements and contributions to the advancement of knowledge in Biomedical Engineering. “Dear Tony Okeke, in recognition of your scholarly achievements and contributions to the advancement of knowledge in your field, it is our pleasure to nominate you for Full Membership in Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society,” the group wrote in the letter.
Sigma Xi, founded in 1886, honors excellence in scientific investigation and recognises researchers for the values the Society hold in high esteem. More than 200 Nobel Laureates are members, “all joining together under the single mission to enhance the health of the research enterprise, foster integrity in science and engineering, and promote the public’s understanding of science for the purpose of improving the human condition”
Writing further in the letter, the Society stated that membership in the Honor Society distinguishes, and recognises, Tony as an exceptional contributor to the research community and offers him a myriad of opportunities to support his career. In addition, the Society membership offers him access to programs and initiatives that recognize innovators, support interdisciplinary research, foster responsible conduct of research, train researchers in science communication, cultivate the next generation of researchers, and promote the public understanding of science.
It would be recalled that in 2023, during the Philly CodeFest hackathon in Philadelphia, USA, Tony led an interdisciplinary team of six international students in developing MedDibia, an AI-powered iOs application for healthcare delivery in undeserved communities, especially in developing countries. As the project lead, he developed machine learning solutions to power core functionality. This included training a classifier to predict diseases from lists of symptoms. Additionally, he utilized transfer learning to adapt a pre-trained “Convolutional Neural Network” to identify skin lesions by training on over 15000 images across 23 skin disease.
He used a FLASK API to integrate these models into a unified diagnostic platform which powered an iOS app — developed in parallel by other team members. This project, out of the 40 entries submitted to Philly CodeFest, emerged the winner of Philly CodeFest 2023 Collaborative Team Award, one of the top prizes in the hackathon, affirming the innovative nature of their approach and showed, firsthand, how machine learning models can augment clinical diagnostics and make healthcare information more accessible, envisioning digital diagnostic assistants that provide reliable, interpretable guidance to augment the decisions of healthcare workers.
Tony’s research focuses on leveraging bioinformatics and computational methods to investigate molecular mechanisms related to identifying and predicting potential safety concerns in the various areas across drug development.
Some of his most notable accomplishments were made at the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, during his internship at Penn Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, in his investigations of biomarkers for immune activation and neuro-injury in acute COVID-19 infections. This contributed to enhanced understanding of immune responses, organ failure and the impact of anti-viral treatments in COVID-19 patients, leading to the publication of high-impact papers on Covid-19 and his presentation of the work at the 51st Critical Care Congress of the USA Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM) Puerto Rico, April18 to 21, 2022.
Tony is also noted to have created novel interactive tools to facilitate the investigation of variations in gene expression across various cancer types. In addition, he has contributed to the development of machine learning models for predicting gene ontology enrichment in genomic based studies using RNA Sequencing and Affymetrix GeneChip data, and developed interactive web-based platforms from data generated, using high-content imaging (cell painting) platforms.
Sources at the multinational pharmaceutical group, GlaxoSmithKline, GSK, Collegeville, Pennsylvania, USA, where Tony was an intern, said he was instrumental in developing a multitude of data analysis packages, and helped to advance GSK data science, that enabled the GSK laboratory to investigate mechanisms of toxicity using new platforms being developed by GSK scientists.
In the Spring of 2023, Tony, in appreciation of his works, was given a research award, the Genetic Toxicology Technical Committee (GTTC) Professional Development Award for the Genetic Toxicology Workstream from Cross Industry Consortia, i.e., the Washington DC, USA, based Health Environmental and Safety Institute (HESI) focusing on Emerging Systems in Toxicology.
In further recognition of Tony’s strides, the USA Society of Toxicology has invited him to deliver abstract presentation to scientists attending the Society of Toxicology, SOT, 63rd Annual Conference & TOXEXPO schedule to hold at Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, from March 10 to 14, 2024. Tony would be speaking at the session on Bioinformatics, presenting his scientific research on “the Use of Advanced Computational Method to Understand Gene Functions From RNA Sequencing Data”.
By presenting at this Conference, he would share his research during the leading international forum for Toxicologists, engage in open dialogue with some of the attendees for future collaborative opportunities. In attendance would be over 5000 attendees and the event will feature scientific sessions, presentations, and exhibitions, sharing the latest science and technology in the field, as well as to make new connections, gather friends, and engage in mentoring and professional development.
AsideTony’s academic and scientific accolades, he has displayed outstanding leadership qualities by his service as the Vice President and the Project Manager of Drexel University Computational Design Group as well as his participation in helping to drive the Drexel Society of Artificial Intelligence over the past years.
Tony is a Biomedical Engineering student, pursuing a joint MSc/BSc degree with concentration in Bioinformatics (MSc) and Neuroengineering (BSc) in Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
