Zeeshan Ahmed

Dr. Zeeshan Ahmed

Institute for Health, and Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ, USA
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Research Focus & Metrics

Academic Career Length

18Years (2009-Present)

(Calculated once Scilit publication data is synced: current year − year of first publication + 1)

Representative Publications

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2 January 2024 in Scientific Reports
Verified
Journal Article
Open access
PDF file
WDWilliam DeGroat
William DeGroat
HAHabiba Abdelhalim
Habiba Abdelhalim
KPKush Patel
Kush Patel
DMDinesh Mendhe
Dinesh Mendhe
SZSaman Zeeshan
Saman Zeeshan
Zeeshan AhmedZeeshan Ahmed
Zeeshan Ahmed
Personalized interventions are deemed vital given the intricate characteristics, advancement, inherent genetic composition, and diversity of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). The appropriate utilization of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) methodologies can yield novel understandings of CVDs, enabling improved personalized treatments through predictive analysis and deep phenotyping. In this study, we proposed and employed a novel approach combining traditional statistics and a nexus of cutting-edge AI/ML techniques to identify significant biomarkers for our predictive engine by analyzing the complete transcriptome of CVD patients. After robust gene expression data pre-processing, we utilized three statistical tests (Pearson correlation, Chi-square test, and ANOVA) to assess the differences in transcriptomic expression and clinical characteristics between healthy individuals and CVD patients. Next, the recursive feature elimination classifier assigned rankings to transcriptomic features based on their relation to the case–control variable. The top ten percent of commonly observed significant biomarkers were evaluated using four unique ML classifiers (Random Forest, Support Vector Machine, Xtreme Gradient Boosting Decision Trees, and k-Nearest Neighbors). After optimizing hyperparameters, the ensembled models, which were implemented using a soft voting classifier, accurately differentiated between patients and healthy individuals. We have uncovered 18 transcriptomic biomarkers that are highly significant in the CVD population that were used to predict disease with up to 96% accuracy. Additionally, we cross-validated our results with clinical records collected from patients in our cohort. The identified biomarkers served as potential indicators for early detection of CVDs. With its successful implementation, our newly developed predictive engine provides a valuable framework for identifying patients with CVDs based on their biomarker profiles.

1 January 2020 in Database: The Journal of Biological Databases and Curation
Verified
Journal Article
Open access
PDF file
Zeeshan AhmedZeeshan Ahmed
Zeeshan Ahmed
KMKhalid Mohamed
Khalid Mohamed
SZSaman Zeeshan
Saman Zeeshan
XDXinQi Dong
XinQi Dong
Precision medicine is one of the recent and powerful developments in medical care, which has the potential to improve the traditional symptom-driven practice of medicine, allowing earlier interventions using advanced diagnostics and tailoring better and economically personalized treatments. Identifying the best pathway to personalized and population medicine involves the ability to analyze comprehensive patient information together with broader aspects to monitor and distinguish between sick and relatively healthy people, which will lead to a better understanding of biological indicators that can signal shifts in health. While the complexities of disease at the individual level have made it difficult to utilize healthcare information in clinical decision-making, some of the existing constraints have been greatly minimized by technological advancements. To implement effective precision medicine with enhanced ability to positively impact patient outcomes and provide real-time decision support, it is important to harness the power of electronic health records by integrating disparate data sources and discovering patient-specific patterns of disease progression. Useful analytic tools, technologies, databases, and approaches are required to augment networking and interoperability of clinical, laboratory and public health systems, as well as addressing ethical and social issues related to the privacy and protection of healthcare data with effective balance. Developing multifunctional machine learning platforms for clinical data extraction, aggregation, management and analysis can support clinicians by efficiently stratifying subjects to understand specific scenarios and optimize decision-making. Implementation of artificial intelligence in healthcare is a compelling vision that has the potential in leading to the significant improvements for achieving the goals of providing real-time, better personalized and population medicine at lower costs. In this study, we focused on analyzing and discussing various published artificial intelligence and machine learning solutions, approaches and perspectives, aiming to advance academic solutions in paving the way for a new data-centric era of discovery in healthcare.

1 March 2020 in Clinical and Translational Medicine
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Journal Article
Open access
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Zeeshan AhmedZeeshan Ahmed
Zeeshan Ahmed
SZSaman Zeeshan
Saman Zeeshan
DMDinesh Mendhe
Dinesh Mendhe
XDXinQi Dong
XinQi Dong
We are entering the era of personalized medicine in which an individual's genetic makeup will eventually determine how a doctor can tailor his or her therapy. Therefore, it is becoming critical to understand the genetic basis of common diseases, for example, which genes predispose and rare genetic variants contribute to diseases, and so on. Our study focuses on helping researchers, medical practitioners, and pharmacists in having a broad view of genetic variants that may be implicated in the likelihood of developing certain diseases. Our focus here is to create a comprehensive database with mobile access to all available, authentic and actionable genes, SNPs, and classified diseases and drugs collected from different clinical and genomics databases worldwide, including Ensembl, GenCode, ClinVar, GeneCards, DISEASES, HGMD, OMIM, GTR, CNVD, Novoseek, Swiss‐Prot, LncRNADisease, Orphanet, GWAS Catalog, SwissVar, COSMIC, WHO, and FDA. We present a new cutting‐edge gene‐SNP‐disease‐drug mobile database with a smart phone application, integrating information about classified diseases and related genes, germline and somatic mutations, and drugs. Its database includes over 59 000 protein‐coding and noncoding genes; over 67 000 germline SNPs and over a million somatic mutations reported for over 19 000 protein‐coding genes located in over 1000 regions, published with over 3000 articles in over 415 journals available at the PUBMED; over 80 000 ICDs; over 123 000 NDCs; and over 100 000 classified gene‐SNP‐disease associations. We present an application that can provide new insights into the information about genetic basis of human complex diseases and contribute to assimilating genomic with phenotypic data for the availability of gene‐based designer drugs, precise targeting of molecular fingerprints for tumor, appropriate drug therapy, predicting individual susceptibility to disease, diagnosis, and treatment of rare illnesses are all a few of the many transformations expected in the decade to come.

21 May 2022 in Briefings in Bioinformatics
Verified
Journal Article
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SVSreya Vadapalli
Sreya Vadapalli
HAHabiba Abdelhalim
Habiba Abdelhalim
SZSaman Zeeshan
Saman Zeeshan
Zeeshan AhmedZeeshan Ahmed
Zeeshan Ahmed
Precision medicine uses genetic, environmental and lifestyle factors to more accurately diagnose and treat disease in specific groups of patients, and it is considered one of the most promising medical efforts of our time. The use of genetics is arguably the most data-rich and complex components of precision medicine. The grand challenge today is the successful assimilation of genetics into precision medicine that translates across different ancestries, diverse diseases and other distinct populations, which will require clever use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) methods. Our goal here was to review and compare scientific objectives, methodologies, datasets, data sources, ethics and gaps of AI/ML approaches used in genomics and precision medicine. We selected high-quality literature published within the last 5 years that were indexed and available through PubMed Central. Our scope was narrowed to articles that reported application of AI/ML algorithms for statistical and predictive analyses using whole genome and/or whole exome sequencing for gene variants, and RNA-seq and microarrays for gene expression. We did not limit our search to specific diseases or data sources. Based on the scope of our review and comparative analysis criteria, we identified 32 different AI/ML approaches applied in variable genomics studies and report widely adapted AI/ML algorithms for predictive diagnostics across several diseases.

1 December 2023 in Bioinformatics
Verified
Journal Article
Open access
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WDWilliam DeGroat
William DeGroat
DMDinesh Mendhe
Dinesh Mendhe
ABAtharva Bhusari
Atharva Bhusari
HAHabiba Abdelhalim
Habiba Abdelhalim
SZSaman Zeeshan
Saman Zeeshan
Zeeshan AhmedZeeshan Ahmed
Zeeshan Ahmed
In this article, we present IntelliGenes, a novel machine learning (ML) pipeline for the multi-genomics exploration to discover biomarkers significant in disease prediction with high accuracy. IntelliGenes is based on a novel approach, which consists of nexus of conventional statistical techniques and cutting-edge ML algorithms using multi-genomic, clinical, and demographic data. IntelliGenes introduces a new metric, i.e. Intelligent Gene (I-Gene) score to measure the importance of individual biomarkers for prediction of complex traits. I-Gene scores can be utilized to generate I-Gene profiles of individuals to comprehend the intricacies of ML used in disease prediction. IntelliGenes is user-friendly, portable, and a cross-platform application, compatible with Microsoft Windows, macOS, and UNIX operating systems. IntelliGenes not only holds the potential for personalized early detection of common and rare diseases in individuals, but also opens avenues for broader research using novel ML methodologies, ultimately leading to personalized interventions and novel treatment targets. The source code of IntelliGenes is available on GitHub (https://github.com/drzeeshanahmed/intelligenes) and Code Ocean (https://codeocean.com/capsule/8638596/tree/v1).

2 October 2020 in Human Genomics
Verified
Journal Article
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Zeeshan AhmedZeeshan Ahmed
Zeeshan Ahmed
Precision medicine aims to empower clinicians to predict the most appropriate course of action for patients with complex diseases like cancer, diabetes, cardiomyopathy, and COVID-19. With a progressive interpretation of the clinical, molecular, and genomic factors at play in diseases, more effective and personalized medical treatments are anticipated for many disorders. Understanding patient’s metabolomics and genetic make-up in conjunction with clinical data will significantly lead to determining predisposition, diagnostic, prognostic, and predictive biomarkers and paths ultimately providing optimal and personalized care for diverse, and targeted chronic and acute diseases. In clinical settings, we need to timely model clinical and multi-omics data to find statistical patterns across millions of features to identify underlying biologic pathways, modifiable risk factors, and actionable information that support early detection and prevention of complex disorders, and development of new therapies for better patient care. It is important to calculate quantitative phenotype measurements, evaluate variants in unique genes and interpret using ACMG guidelines, find frequency of pathogenic and likely pathogenic variants without disease indicators, and observe autosomal recessive carriers with a phenotype manifestation in metabolome. Next, ensuring security to reconcile noise, we need to build and train machine-learning prognostic models to meaningfully process multisource heterogeneous data to identify high-risk rare variants and make medically relevant predictions. The goal, today, is to facilitate implementation of mainstream precision medicine to improve the traditional symptom-driven practice of medicine, and allow earlier interventions using predictive diagnostics and tailoring better-personalized treatments. We strongly recommend automated implementation of cutting-edge technologies, utilizing machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) approaches for the multimodal data aggregation, multifactor examination, development of knowledgebase of clinical predictors for decision support, and best strategies for dealing with relevant ethical issues.