Meet Jasmine Olvany, Ph.D., NHLBI BioData Catalyst fellow alumna. Dr. Jasmine Olvany studies the genomic sequencing of the Plasmodium parasite species that causes malaria, a devastating mosquito-borne disease that is a leading cause of death in developing countries. Dr. Olvany says that NHLBI BioData Catalyst® (BDC) has been a gamechanger for her research. BDC, a cloud computing ecosystem, helps researchers like Dr. Olvany conduct research and share data so others can reproduce findings and reuse data to advance heart, lung, blood, and sleep science. BDC's data, secure workspaces, analytic tools, applications, and workflows help scientists conduct research faster and more efficiently.
Fast facts: Though BDC’s first cohort of fellows started in 2020 and BDC became available for broader use just over two years ago, several researchers have used the ecosystem for their published research. Read more than 20 of the papers here.
Sweet inspiration. Dr. Olvany was motivated early on to find a way to help eliminate malaria, one of the most deadly infectious diseases affecting humans. Dr. Olvany started using BDC to develop a pipeline (a series of steps that delivers data from a source to a destination for storing and analysis) to reliably find malaria-causing parasites in a way that identifies the specific species of parasites. She hoped the pipeline she developed would help global health professionals detect malaria in infected people who do not show symptoms. “Contributing to something that may make the world better one day is why I went into global health,” she says.
Big impact. BDC builds upon NHLBI resources and research to help investigators look at data in new ways or analyze it with more advanced tools. It also expedites data science to help researchers meet their goals faster. For Dr. Olvany, BDC opened new doors for her malaria research. She is exploring how the malaria-infected Plasmodium parasite might affect the heart or other parts of the blood circulatory system. Her project also expanded to track genes associated with antimalarial-resistant drugs. “With the introduction of this cloud-based ecosystem, tasks that took me several weeks were done in several hours just because of the extreme computational power,” says Dr. Olvany. “That’s life-changing for research.”
Bright future. Dr. Olvany believes the data she collected can help further future understanding of the parasite and its effect on cardiovascular disease factors like high blood pressure. Eventually, this might help identify new interventions that improve the lives of people who are infected. The BDC ecosystem is also expanding its capabilities and gaining more users. As it grows, more investigators will leverage datasets from existing NHLBI research while adding their own data, growing NHLBI’s scientific impact.
For more information or to access the NHLBI BioData Catalyst®, visit biodatacatalyst.nhlbi.nih.gov.