Yang Cheng Fann, Ph.D.

Headshot of Dr. Yang Fann
Director, Clinical Informatics
Address
Office of Intramural Research Program

NIHBC 35A - PNRC II BG RM GD-717
35A CONVENT DR
BETHESDA MD 20892

Dr. Fann joined NINDS in 2002 as the Director of the Intramural IT and Bioinformatics Program overseeing the information technology support services and infrastructures as well as developing biomedical informatics research programs. In addition to his role at NINDS, he has been a principal investigator on the Informatics Core of Center for Neuroscience and Regenerative Medicine working on building the informatics infrastructure for the National Traumatic Brian Injury (TBI) Study, a collaborative research program of the DoD and NIH.  His bioinformatics group has been developing several database tools, such as Stem Cell DatabaseEvoPrinter and EncoMPASS as well as several internal clinical applications to catalyze the neuroscience research.

In 2010, his innovative creation of Purchasing On-line Tracking System (POTS) to streamline and transform scientific procurement administration was quickly adopted by the NIH community, and won him the first ever HHS Innovates Award presented by the Secretary of HHS. In addition to his roles and responsibilities at NINDS, Dr. Fann serves on many NIH advisory and steering committees including the NIH IT Budget Advisory Committee (ITBAC), Clinical Center IT advisory committee, NIH IT Management Committee, NIH High Performance Computing Working group and Co-chair the Biomedical Translational Research Information System (BTRIS) Steering Committee, to name a few.

Additionally, Dr. Fann has co-led an international collaborative team with Dr. Matthew McAuliffe at Center for Information Technology (CIT) to build a reusable and sustainable Integrated Biomedical Informatics System and informatics infrastructure named BRICS, Biomedical Research Informatics Computing System, to support and catalyze biomedical research and data sharing. The project was built based on existing applications and tools at NIH for scientific administration, clinical research study management and biomedical data repository (or data warehouse) with modular tools such as common data elements (CDE), global unique identifiers (GUID), and data import/export validations as well as patient reported outcomes based on PROMIS API.  The BRICS has been used in several key external and NIH wide research networks such as DoD’s The Federal Interagency Traumatic Brain Injury Research (FITBIR)NINDS’s Parkinson's Disease Biomarkers Program (PDBP), and NEI eyeGENE. The BRICS has also received many industrial and government awards.

Recently Dr. Fann has taken on a new role as the Director of Clinical Informatics for the National Institutes of Health’s Intramural Research Program (IRP).  In this role, he has responsibility of addressing a wide range of clinical informatics challenges related to the clinical research program of NIH IRP.   He is currently leading a strategic planning initiative aiming to assess and develop a new vision for clinical informatics within the IRP. It will also focus on providing informatics solutions for the investigators that aims to reduce barriers for collaboration, simplifies compliance and enable data sharing through the implementation of a data ecosystem with interoperability with other relevant IRP-wide systems such as e-IRB, CRIS and IC clinical information systems. 

Dr. Fann has been served on several journals’ editorial boards.  He recently served as a scientific judge on the COVID-19 Open Research Dataset Challenge (CORD-19): An AI challenge with AI2, CZI, MSR, Georgetown, NIH and The White House. He has received numerous NINDS and NIH Director’s Awards for his contributions in scientific and administration support to the NIH community.   Dr. Fann's current research interests are computational biology, bioinformatics, clinical research informatics, and applying information technology such as machine learning and artificial intelligence to advance translational biomedical research.
 

Dr. Fann's current research interests are computational biology, bioinformatics, clinical research informatics, and applying information technology such as machine learning and artificial intelligence to advance translational biomedical research.

  1. Hui-Ju Chang; Mei-Yu Lai; Chen-Hsin Chen; Yang C. Fann, Ueng-Cheng Yang “High BRCA1 gene expression increases the risk of early distant metastasis in ER+ breast cancers”, Sci Rep 12, 77 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-03471-w
  2. Yang, L.-Y.; Tsai, M.-Y.; Juan, S.-H.; Chang, S.-F.; Yu, C.-T.R.; Lin, J.-C.; Johnson, K.R.; Lim, H.G.-M.; Fann, Y.C.; Lee, Y.-C.G. “Exerting the Appropriate Application of Methylprednisolone in Acute Spinal Cord Injury Based on Time Course Transcriptomics Analysis”; Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2021, 22, 13024. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms222313024
  3. Ching-Heng Lin, Kai-Cheng Hsu, Chih-Kuang Liang, Tsong-Hai Lee, Chia-Wei Liou, Jiann-Der Lee, Tsung-I Peng, Ching-Sen Shih, Yang C. Fann*, “A disease-specific language representation model for cerebrovascular disease research”, Comp Methods and Prog in Biomed, 211, 2021, p.106446, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmpb.2021.106446.
  4. Kory R. Johnson, Barbara S. Mallon, Yang C. Fann, and Kevin G. Chen; “Multivariate Meta-Analysis Reveals Global Transcriptomic Signatures Underlying Distinct Human Naive-like Pluripotent States”, PLOS One, 16(5): e0251461, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251461.
  5. Hsu KC, Lin CH, Johnson KR, Fann YC*, Hsu CY, Tsai CH, Chen PL, Chang WL, Yeh PY, Wei CY, Taiwan Stroke Registry Investigators; “Comparison of outcome prediction models post-stroke for a population-based registry with clinical variables collected at admission vs. discharge”. Vessel Plus 2021;5:2. http://dx.doi.org/10.20517/2574-1209.2020.45.
  6. Ching-Heng Lin, Kai-Cheng Hsu, Kory R. Johnson, Yang C. Fann*, Chon-Haw Tsai, Yu Sun, Li-Ming Lien, Wei-Lun Chang, Po-Lin Chen, Cheng-Li Lin, Chung Y. Hsu, Taiwan Stroke Registry Investigators; “Evaluation of machine learning methods to stroke outcome prediction using a nationwide disease registry”, Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine, 2020 Jul;190:105381, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmpb.2020.105381
  7. KR Johnson, BS Mallon, YC Fann, KG Chen; “Multivariate Meta-Analysis of Differential Principal Components underlying Human Primed and Naive-like Pluripotent States”, bioRxiv, 347666, 2020;  https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.10.20.347666
  8. Kai-Cheng Hsu, Ching-Heng Lin, Kory R Johnson, Chi-Hung Liu, Ting-Yu Chang, Kuo-Lun Huang, Yang-Cheng Fann*, Tsong-Hai Lee, “Autodetect extracranial and intracranial artery stenosis by machine learning using ultrasound”, Computers in Biology and Medicine, 2020, 116:103569. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compbiomed.2019.103569
  9. Kory R. Johnson, Barbara S. Mallon, Yang C. Fann, Kevin G. Chen; “Interlaboratory Data Variability Contributes to the Differential Principal Components of Human Primed and Naïve-like Pluripotent States in Multivariate Meta-Analysis”; BioRxiv, 822163, 2019; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/822163
  10. Ching-Heng Lin, Kai-Cheng Hsu, Kory R. Johnson, Marie Luby, Yang Cheng Fann*; “Applying density-based outlier identifications using multiple datasets for validation of stroke clinical outcomes” International Journal of Medical Informatics, v.132, 2019, 103988 (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2019.103988)
  11. Vivek Navale, Michele Ji, Olga Vovk, Leonie Misquitta, Tsega Gebremichael, Alison Garcia, Yang Fann, Matthew McAuliffe; “Development of an informatics system for accelerating biomedical research”; F1000Research, 2019, 8:1430 (https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.19161.1)
  12. Kazumasa Unno; Angelos Oikonomopoulos, Yusuke Fujikawa, Yusuke Okuno, Singo Narita, Tomohiro Kato, Ryo Hayashida, Kazuhisa Kondo, Rei Shibata, Toyoaki Murohara, Yanfei Yang, Seema Dangwal, Konstantina-Ioanna Sereti; Qiu Yiling, Kory R Johnson, Alokkumar Jha, David E Sosnovik, Yang C Fann, Ronglih Liao, “Alteration in ventricular pressure stimulates cardiac repair and remodeling”, J Mol Cell Cardiol. 2019 Aug;133:174-187. doi: 10.1016/j.yjmcc.2019.06.006. Epub 2019 Jun 17.
  13. Ueng‐Cheng Yang, Tzu‐Hung Hsiao, Ching‐Heng Lin, Wei‐Ju Lee, Yu‐Shan Lee, Yang C. Fann*; “Integrative LHS for precision medicine research: A shared NIH and Taiwan CIMS experience”, Learn Health Sys. 2019;3:e10071. https://doi.org/10.1002/lrh2.10071
  14. Fann, Y.C.* “Enhancing patient care and outcomes through innovative informatics systems and tools”, Comp. Meth. and Prog. in Biomed. 158, A1 (2018)
  15. Jung-Chun Lin; Yuan-Chii Lee; Tse-Hua Tan; Yu-Chih Liang; Huai-Chia Chuang; Yang C. Fann; Kory R. Johnson; Ying-Ju Lin “RBM4-SRSF3-MAP4K4 splicing cascade modulates the metastatic signature of colorectal cancer cell” BBA - Molecular Cell Research, v1865, p259-272 (2018)
  16. Vivek Navale, Michelle Ji, Evan McCreedy, Tsega Gebremichael, Alison Garcia, Leonie Misquitta, Ching-Heng Lin, Yang C. Fann*, Matthew McAuliffe*, “Standardized Informatics Computing Platform for Advancing Biomedical Discovery Through Data Sharing”, BioRxiv Journal, 259465, 2018
  17. Lin, HC, Yang UC, Fann, YC, “System and method of standard-compliant electronic case report form design and clinical data set generation”, US Patent App. 15/470,467, 2018
  18. Xinjing Wang; Wadih M Zein ; Leera D'Souza; Chimere Roberson; Keith Wetherby; Hong He; Angela Villarta; Amy Turriff; Kory R Johnson; Yang C Fann, “Applying next generation sequencing with microdroplet PCR to determine the disease-causing mutations in retinal dystrophies” BMC Ophthalmology, 17, 157 (2017). PMID: 28838317
  19. Jung-Chun Lin, Yuan-Chii Lee, Yu-Chih Liang, Yang Fann, Kory Johnson, and Ying-Ju Lin; “The impact of the RBM4-initiated splicing cascade on modulating the carcinogenic signature of colorectal cancer cells", Nature Scientific Report, 7, 44204; doi: 10.1038/srep44204 (2017)
  20. Xianlai Chen; Yang C Fann; Matthew McAuliffe; David Vismer; Rong Yang; “Checking Questionable Entry of Personally Identifiable Information Encrypted by One-Way Hash Transformation”, JMIR Medical Informatics, 5(1), e2, 2017 (PMID 28213343)