Michael J. Becich, Associate Professor
Director of Pathology Informatics
MD, Northwestern University, 1984
PhD, Northwestern University, 1984
Email: becich@pitt.edu
Michael J. Becich, MD PhD, is a Professor of Biomedical Informatics and the founding Chair of a new Department of Biomedical Informatics at the University of Pittsburgh Medical School. He is also jointly appointed as Professor of Pathology as well as Information Sciences and Telecommunications. Dr. Becich holds an MD and a PhD in Experimental Pathology form Northwestern University and his research interests are in cancer biology and biomedical informatics. His current research focuses on developing tools to couple clinical data (phenomics) to expression data derived from high throughput genomics and proteomics. This program focuses on creating data mining and data warehousing tools for data derived from DNA based microarrays, tissue microarrays, tissue bank information systems, clinical information systems and imaging repositories. He leads group of investigators at the University of Pittsburgh to participate in the Cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid and is co-director of the University of Pittsburgh Medical School's newly funded Clinical and Translational Science Institute. As part of this roadmap initiative, Dr. Becich has founded the Center for Clinical and Translational Informatics (CCTI). CCTI will be the home for clinical research informatics development in the areas of tissue banking, clinical trials, vocabulary/ontology services, data mining and data warehousing at the University of Pittsburgh Medical School. He is a member of 13 professional societies and has published over 140 papers that contribute to the mission of Biomedical Informatics as applied to Translational Medicine. Of note, Dr. Becich has hosted Advancing Practice, Instruction and Innovation through Inforamtics (APIII, see http://apiii.upmc.edu) a transformational scientific conference which is currently in it 12th year and has provided over 200 educational awards to trainees in informatics.
Recent Publications
Mohanty SK, Parwani AV, Crowley RS, Winters S, Becich MJ. The importance of pathology informatics in translational research. Adv Anat Pathol. 2007 Sep;14(5):320-2.
Raab SS, Grzybicki DM, Condel JL, Stewart WR, Turcsanyi BD, Mahood LK, Becich MJ. Effect of lean method implementation in the histopathology section of an anatomic pathology laboratory. J Clin Pathol. 2007 Aug 3; [Epub ahead of print]
Mohanty SK, Piccoli AL, Devine LJ, Patel AA, William GC, Winters SB, Becich MJ, Parwani AV. Synoptic tool for reporting of hematological and lymphoid neoplasms based on World Health Organization classification and College of American Pathologists checklist. BMC Cancer. 2007 Jul 31;7:144.
Drake TA, Braun J, Marchevsky A, Kohane IS, Fletcher C, Chueh H, Beckwith B, Berkowicz D, Kuo F, Zeng QT, Balis U, Holzbach A, McMurry A, Gee CE, McDonald CJ, Schadow G, Davis M, Hattab EM, Blevins L, Hook J, Becich M, Crowley RS, Taube SE, Berman J; Shared Pathology Informatics Network. A system for sharing routine surgical pathology specimens across institutions: the Shared Pathology Informatics Network. Hum Pathol. 2007
Aug;38(8):1212-25. Epub 2007 May 8.
Chandran UR, Ma C, Dhir R, Bisceglia M, Lyons-Weiler M, Liang W, Michalopoulos G, Becich M, Monzon FA. Gene expression profiles of prostate cancer reveal involvement of multiple molecular pathways in the metastatic process. BMC Cancer. 2007 Apr 12;7:64.
Patel AA, Gupta D, Seligson D, Hattab EM, Balis UJ, Ulbright TM, Kohane IS, Berman JJ, Gilbertson JR, Dry S, Schirripa O, Yu H, Becich MJ, Parwani AV; Shared Pathology Informatics Network. Availability and quality of paraffin blocks identified in pathology archives: a multi-institutional study by the Shared Pathology Informatics Network (SPIN). BMC Cancer. 2007 Feb 28;7:37.
Kajdacsy-Balla A, Geynisman JM, Macias V, Setty S, Nanaji NM, Berman JJ, Dobbin K, Melamed J, Kong X, Bosland M, Orenstein J, Bayerl J, Becich MJ, Dhir R, Datta MW; Cooperative Prostate Cancer Tissue Resource. Practical aspects of planning, building, and interpreting tissue microarrays: the Cooperative Prostate Cancer Tissue Resource experience. J Mol Histol. 2007 May;38(2):113-21. Epub 2007 Feb 21. Review.
LaFramboise WA, Scalise D, Stoodley P, Graner SR, Guthrie RD, Magovern JA, Becich MJ. Cardiac fibroblasts influence cardiomyocyte phenotype in vitro.
Am J Physiol Cell Physiol. 2007 May;292(5):C1799-808. Epub 2007 Jan 17.
Patel AA, Gilbertson JR, Parwani AV, Dhir R, Datta MW, Gupta R, Berman JJ, Melamed J, Kajdacsy-Balla A, Orenstein J, Becich MJ; Cooperative Prostate Cancer Tissue Resource. An informatics model for tissue banks--lessons learned from the Cooperative Prostate Cancer Tissue Resource. BMC Cancer. 2006 May 5;6:120.
Ma C, Lyons-Weiler M, Liang W, LaFramboise W, Gilbertson JR, Becich MJ, Monzon FA. In vitro transcription amplification and labeling methods contribute to the variability of gene expression profiling with DNA microarrays. J Mol Diagn. 2006 May;8(2):183-92.
