Essam Othman, MD

Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology

University of Assiut

AWARrD Principal Investigator

Dr Othman is an Associate Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology of Assiut University in Assiut Egypt. He is the  Principal Investigator of the AWARrD Project. A reproductive endocrinologist, he has performed basic research on the development of leiomyomas in the uterus and is an involved clinician, educator and administrator in his department. Dr Othman has published on basic and translational sciences related to leiomomas and was a fellow under Professor Ayman Al Hendy in Texas. An associate member of FIGO's Menstrual Disorders Committee with Professor Munro, he has a broad experience in understanding the pathogenesis, clinical impact and research gaps in the clinical problems that comprise abnormal uterine bleeding. The Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Assiut University has a long history of successful contribution to research including that conducted under the auspices of the WHO. Dr Othman is responsible for all aspects of the AWARrD project.

Karim Abdallah, MD

Senior Clinical Fellow, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology

University of Assiut

aim (Project 1), Vitamin D and Leiomyomas Clinical Trial

Dr. Abdalla is a clinical fellow in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology  who has gained significant experience in clinical research in women’s health during his Research Fellowship supervised by Prof. Ben Mol at Monash University, Australia. During this period, Dr. Abdalla learned basic and advanced clinical research methodology and statistics including the use of SPSS and R statistics software programs in clinical trial design, implementation, analysis and overall management. Dr. Abdallah’s expertise will be well-fitting for the clinical trial on vitamin D and uterine fibroids in Project# 1 of the AWARrD hub activities.

Radwa Abdelhameed, MD

Junior Clinical Fellow, Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology

University of Assiut

aim (Project 1), Vitamin D and Leiomyomas Clinical Trial

Dr. Abdelhameed graduated from the Assiut Faculty of Medicine, Assiut University in Egypt in 2018, and she was the top student in her class. She was awarded prizes of honor by the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, the University President and the Egyptian Medical Syndicate for this achievement. She completed an obstetrical and gynecological residency in Assiut University, Egypt. Now she is a junior clinical fellow in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Dr. Abdelhameed’s role within the AWARrD hub will focus mainly on the aim clinical trial designed vitamin D and fibroids including patients interviews, examination, counseling, and follow-up.

Mena Nagy Adly, BSc

Faculty of Computers & Information

University of Assiut

Co-Investigator, AWARrD Core

Mr. Adly is teaching assistant in the Department of Information Systems in the Faculty of Computers and Information, Assiut University, Egypt. He teaches various courses and  conducts research in big data analytics and data science. Mr. Adly will devote 50% effort to working with the DMAC, where he will be working with imbalanced data existing through smart technologies.

Ayman Al-Hendy, MD, PhD

Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology, University of Chicago

Project Lead aim (Project 1)

Dr Al-Hendy is a gynecologist and Professor Professor and Vice Chair forResearch in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at The University of Chicago with current or prior funding from 8 NIH institutes/Centers (NICHD, NIEHS, NCRR, NIMH, NCATS, NIMHD, ODS, OWHR), USDA, and over 27 commercial and pharmaceutical research contracts.  He has served on several NIH study sections and special emphasis panels,and has been the chair of the NIH/CSR Integrative Clinical Endocrinology and Reproduction (ICER) IRG 2014-2016.  Dr. Al-Hendy and co-workers were first to report serum vitamin D deficiency as a risk factor for uterine fibroids in 2010, pivotal findings confirmed later by other groups worldwide (more than 40 published articles from 23 countries) and present a biochemical explanation for the ethnic disparity of this common disease. Dr. Al-Hendy will also identify and recruit suitable cases of traditional (typical) leiomyoma versus atypical leiomyoma as well as cases suspicious for leiomyosarcoma. He will also work closely with the data science experts to map out suspicious areas on MRI scans that will then be used to feed the machine leanings algorithms.

Dr Brettin is a Strategic Program Manager at Argonne National Laboratory and has dual appointment at Argonne and the University of Chicago. His current work focuses on the development of projects at the intersection of genomics, artificial intelligence, and leadership scale computing as well as providing ongoing direction on existing bioinformatics at Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago. He will work on the extraction of features from the machine learning models that could be potential biomarkers associated with diagnoses and outcomes that could ultimately be used as signatures associated with interventions for improving quality of life. He will also contribute to the analysis of the models to understand what new data could improve the predictive performance of the models.

Moumen T. H. El-Melegy, MSc, PhD

Professor and Chair, Department of Electrical Engineering

University of Assiut

aim (Project 1)

Dr. El-Melegy received his M.Sc and Ph.D in computer science and engineering from the University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, USA in 2000 and 2001, respectively. Since his M.Sc. research and throughout all these years, Dr. El-Melegy has 25 years of experience in the fields of image processing, computer vision, machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI) and software engineering. He has developed novel techniques for  brain segmentation and CAD systems for early prediction of transplanted kidney rejection.  In his home university, he founded the computer vision and artificial intelligence group at the School of Engineering, Assiut University.  Dr. El-Melegy and his team have validated a new non-invasive computer-aided diagnostic (CAD) software system for the early and accurate diagnosis of prostate cancer status using 4D diffusion weighted-magnetic resonance imaging (DWMRI).  Dr. El-Melegy will work in collaboration with the artificial intelligence team from the University of Chicago to develop the deep learning algorithm for differentiating uterine leiomyomas from leiomyosarcomas. 

Dr Elsayed is a hematologist and Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine at Assiut University in Assiut Egypt. Dr. Elsayed is a senior practicing hematologist with special expertise in iron deficiency anemia in reproductive age women. She has a long history of successful conduct of basic and clinical research with a focus on iron deficiency anemia and menstrual disorders both in Egypt and during her collaborative work with Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, USA. Dr. Elsayed will serve as the Core Lead for DatAUB (Project 2) of the AWARrD hub at Assiut University, Assiut, Egypt and will serve as the site PI for the Val-IDA-te pilot study.

Ibrahim Elsemman, MSc, PhD

Assistant Professor,Department of Information Systems,

University of Assiut

Co-Investigator, DMAC and DatAUB (Project 2)

Dr Elsemman is Dr. Elsemman is an Associate Professor in the Department of Information Systems, Faculty of Computers and Information, Assiut University, Egypt. During the preparation for his PhD thesis, Dr. Elsemman was a Research Fellow at Chalmers University, Sweden (2012-2014) and a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Technical University of Denmark (2015-2018).  He is the supervisor of the Department of Applied Bioinformatics in the Molecular Biology Research Institute and conducts his research in systems biology, oral modeling, and machine learning. Dr. Elsemman will spend 50% of his time working with DMAC, where he will work to solve problems with the heterogeneity of the data from the Flo database.

Maryellen Giger, PhD

Professor, Department of Radiology & Medical Physics,

University of Chicago.

Project Co-Investigator,,aim (Project 1)

Dr Giger is the the A.N. Pritzker Professor of Radiology and Medical Physics at The University of Chicago. She is an internationally-recognized expert in computerized quantitative image analysis and AI of medical images, especially in women health. For over 30 years, she has conducted research on computer-aided diagnosis and quantitative image analysis (radiomics)/machine learning in the areas of thoracic diseases (lung cancer, emphysema, osteoporosis, COVID-19), breast cancer, prostate cancer, and bone diseases. She has also served on various NIH study sections, is a former president of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine and a former president of SPIE, and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. Dr. Giger will have the primary scientific responsibility and oversight for the UChicago AI/radiomics of uterine cancer, and will work with all Co-Investigators on this proposal.

Abdulla Hamed

University of Assiut.

AWARrD Administrator

Mr. Hamed has long administrative experience as a senior member of the secretarial team of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at A as a program coordinator for the Ultrasound Training Center  was among the administrators coordinating a World Health Organization multi-center randomized clinical trial for which Assiut University Women’s Health Hospital was a participating site. He will provide pre- and post-award grant management, including coordination with Assiut University administration, monitoring of regulatory and financial compliance, assisting with human resources issues, implementing quality management, and organizing the submission of progress reports all under the supervision of Drs. Othman and Al-Hendy.

Siobàn Harlow, PhD

Professor, Departments of Epidemiology and Obstetrics & Gynecology

University of Michigan

Consultant: DatAUB (Project 2)

Dr Harlow is an epidemiologist and professor in both the Departments of Epidemiology and Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Michigan and serves as that school's Director of the Center for Midlife Science. Her research has focused on the understanding of ovarian and menstrual function across the lifespan showing exceptional leadership in studies exploring the natural history of ovarian aging and the development of a staging system for reproductive aging. She is an expert in the development and application of appropriate statistical methodologies that facilitate quantitative analysis of variation in physiologic process as well as their application in longitudinal cohort studies. She also has considerable experience in fostering career development of junior faculty. She has been the recipient of two institutional mentoring awards, has chaired 27 dissertations and has over 250 peer-reviewed publications. All of this experience and skill would be useful as one goal of the overall DS-I brief is to build capacity in Africa. In this project, her principal role is to provide epidemiological expertise in design, data collection and analysis and to provide expertise regarding measurement of menstrual function and analysis of menstrual data. Pr Harlow has worked with Dr Munro over a period of 20 years in the realm of abnormal uterine bleeding.

Carla Harmath, MD

Assistant Professor, Department of Radiology

University of Chicago

Co-Investigator, aim (Project 1)

Dr Harmath is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Radiology at the University of Chicago. She is fellowship-trained in body imaging/MRI and is faculty in the Section of Abdominal Imaging at the University of Chicago.On this project, Dr. Harmath will have the primary responsibility for the radiologist assessment of the uterine MRIs, including delineation of fibroids/tumors. Dr. Harmath will also work closely with the other investigators in the interpretation of AI outputs.

Sara Hassanian, MSc, MD

Lecturer, Department of Radiology

University of Assiut.

aim Project 1

Dr. Hasanain is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Radiology, Assiut University. She developed experience in segmenting lesions and body parts during a neuroimaging fellowship in the National hospital of Neurology and Neurosurgery in London, the United Kingdom. Dr. Hasanain will work with Dr. Saeifeldein to searching the existing database of MRI images of the female pelvis in Assiut University for volumes containing uterine fibroids and/or leiomyosarcomsa and will use computer software to outline the suspected lesions for the artificial intelligence/ machine learning experts.

Irina Ilyich, MD

Flo Health Inc

DatAUB (Project 2)

Dr. Ilyich, Medical Advisor at Flo, has 12+ years of practical experience in Obstetrics and Gynecology and 8+ years of scientific and research experience. Dr. Ilyich will be responsible for planning the study from the Flo side, including the design of data collection, processing, and reporting, and will provide medical expertise on the heavy menstrual bleeding assessment tool.

Anna Klepchukova, MD

Medical Director

Flo Health Inc

DatAUB (Project 2)

Dr Klepchukova, the Chief Medical Officer of Flow Health, has extensive experience in leading research projects for pharma and digital health companies designed and performed in close collaboration with academic institutions. She has a broad background with specific training in medicine and clinical trials and has a deep understanding of digital health technologies and their utility in research studies. She also has expertise in project and people management, digital marketing, and marketing research. Her expertise and experience will be critical to the coordination and management of numerous teams on the Flo  Health Inc. side (data scientists, developers, medical advisors, legal advisors, finance managers, marketing specialists, PR specialists, etc.) to ensure the success of DatAUB.

Sandra Laveaux, MD, FACOG

Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology, University of Chicago. 

Co-Investigator aim (Project 1)

Dr Laveaux is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology at the University of Chicago.is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Chicago. Dr. Madueke-Laveaux specializes in the medical and surgical treatment of abnormal uterine bleeding, uterine fibroids, endometriosis and chronic pelvic pain.  On this project, Dr. Madueke-Laveaux will provide access to and assist in identifying suitable cases of traditional leiomyoma versus atypical leiomyoma as well as leiomyosarcoma suspicious cases. She will also work closely with the data science experts to map out suspicious areas on MRI scans that will then be used to feed the machine leanings algorithms.

Michelle Lavin, MD, Ph.D

Royal College of Surgeons, Ireland

Consultant: DatAUB (Project 2)

Dr Lavin  is a pediatric haematologist at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, who has directed her research and clinical care to hemostasis, working to improve recognition and management of people with bleeding disorders in general but with a focus on women and girls. She has a vibrant research training program for junior investigators at both undergraduate and graduate level works as a consultant hematologist in the National Coagulation Centre (NCC) a consistently recognized centre for excellence in the field of bleeding disorders. Dr Lavin provides the necessary hematological expertise necessary for this project, and is somewhat unique in that she has both interest and experience in trials involving girls and women with heavy menstrual bleeding.  She will participate in weekly meetings of the Steering Committee which will vary somewhat during the five years, participate in the analysis, interpretation of results and dissemination via manuscript preparation and other means. She will also serve to assist the capacity building aspect of this project by mentoring Pr Elsayed, also a hematologist and the PI from the University of Assiut.

Hui Li, Ph.D, Co-Investigator

University of Chicago

aim (Project 1)

Dr. Li is a Research Associate Professor in the Department of Radiology at The University of Chicago. Dr. Li has been working in medical imaging research of cancer for risk assessment, diagnosis, prognosis, and response to therapy for over 15 years and has expertise in medical image analyses and in statistical evaluations. His investigations has included mathematical and technical aspects of quantitative image analysis as well as their relationship to anatomical and functional aspects of various disease states using both human-engineered radiomics and deep learning methods. On this project, Dr. Li will work with Dr. Giger on the radiomic feature analysis and deep learning of fibroid lesions on MRI. 

Professor Lumsden is the Executive Director of FIGO (the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics) headquartered in London UK, who was responsible for the original NICE guidelines for heavy menstrual bleeding, and who currently is a member of FIGO's Menstrual Disorders Committee  and a Voluntary Professor at the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology at the University of Glasgow in Scotland. An experienced clinical investigator, Dr. Lumsden will assist Dr. Munro with the day-to-day management of the Dat-AUB project and will advise and work with Dr. Ghada Elsayed fromAssiut (Core Lead).  She will work at FIGO to encourage use of the Flo Database in the 40+ countries on the continent. She will co-chair the regular meetings of the DatAUB Steering Committee, the smaller DatAUB Working Group, and will interact with both the DMAC as appropriate on a regular basis. Dr. Lumsden will take the lead in guiding the staff in the Assiut Val-IDA-te pilot assisted by Dr. Munro, while Dr. Munro will take the lead in investigator guidance the Dandora Val-IDA-te pilot study assisted by Pr Lumsden During the planning and recruitment phases, these studies will require near daily communication with the study teams on the ground. In Assiut that will be Dr Elsayed and in Dandora it will be Dr Vaughn. Pr Lumsden will have to make at least two site visits to Kenya and Egypt early in the set-up phase, and then again at least once later in recruitment. Dr Lumsden will work with Drs Munro and Elsayed on analysis and manuscript preparation at various points during, and particularly in the last six months of the overall project.

Kristen Matteson, MD, MPH

Associate Professor, Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology,

Brown University.

Consultant: DatAUB (Project 2)

Dr Matteson is  an obstetrician gynecologist who is vice Chair for research in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and an Associate Professor at Brown University. Dr Matteson has specialized in the development of tools for measuring the clinical impact of abnormal uterine bleeding on women’s health. Her research has resulted in the development and validation of the Menstrual Bleeding Questionnaire. She has also made continuing contributions to development, review and modification of the FIGO Systems for Symptoms and Classification of Abnormal Uterine Bleeding in the Reproductive Years. She will consult on the selection of individual menstrual bleeding tool outcome measure elements into the reproductive health dataset, the design of the study protocols and procedures, the planned data analyses, and collaborate on the interpretation of results and dissemination via manuscripts and other means. 

Malcolm G. Munro, MD, FACOG, FRCSC

FIGO,

Clinical Professor, Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology

University of California, Los Angeles

DatAUB Study Chair;  Co-Investigator, DatAUB

Dr Munro is the Chair of FIGO's Menstrual Disorders Committee and a Clinical Professor in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology at the University of California, Los Angeles. Dr Munro was instrumental in the organizational development of the FIGO Menstrual Disorders Committee (MDC) and its systems for categorizing symptoms and causes of AUB are used worldwide (2011, 2018). Along with Professors Ian Fraser from the University of New South Wales and Hilary O. D. Critchley from the University of Edinburgh, he founded the AUB Task force for the Society of Endometriosis and Uterine Disorders. He has substantial experience in managing international teams of clinicians and in the design and management of multinational research. Dr Munro has published extensively on abnormal uterine bleeding, including a textbook dedicated to the clinical issue and has advised Flo Health on the development of their tool for estimating the volume of menstrual bleeding. He has worked with Drs Matteson, Harlow, Lavin, Al Hendy and Othman on a spectrum of projects related to the clinical problem of abnormal uterine bleeding.

Marawan Radwan, MSc

Fellow and Assistant Lecturer, Department of Information Systems

Faculty of Computer & Data Science

University of Assiut

Co-Investigator, AWARrD Core, DMAC

Mr. Radwan is an Assistant Lecturer in the Department of Information Systems, in the Faculty of Computers and Information, Assiut University, Egypt where he conducts research in data mining algorithms, clustering and big data analysis. Radwan will spend 50% effort of his time working with the DMAC, where he will work jointly with Dr. Salem to deploy machine learning algorithms for the AWARrD projects.

Mostafa Salem MSc, PhD

Assistant Professor, Department of Computer & Data Science

University of Assiut

Co-Investigator, DMAC

Dr. Salem is an Associate Professor, the Department of Computer Science, Faculty of Computers and Information. He conducts research in machine learning and image processing and is also Dr. Salem is currently a member of the current COVID-19 big data platform project funded by the Egyptian Ministry of Higher Education and Research. Dr. Salem will spend 50% effort of his time working with DMAC, where he will be assigned to deploy machine learning algorithms for AWARrD projects.

Rodion Salimgaraev, MD

Medical Science Advisor

Flo Health Inc

DatAUB

Dr. Salimgaraev, the Science Advisor for Flo Health, conducts scientific research in the field of women's health in collaboration with leading universities worldwide. For example, he was instrumental in a collaborative study with Professor Tarun Jain from Northwestern University characterizing PCOS among Flo users. In the DatAUB project Dr. Salimgaraev will act as a data analyst, responsible for collection and systematization of the information relevant for the project on the side of Flo Health.   

Gehan S. A. Seif Eldein, PhD

Professor, Department of Radiology

University of Assiut

Co-Investigator, aim (Project 1)

For 20 years while at Assiut University Dr. Seifeldein has developed her clinical subspecialty interest in the use of CT and MRI pelvic imaging for evaluation of the female pelvic floor and reproductive tract.  She is also a member of the gynecologic oncology multidisciplinary team.  With her co-investigators Dr Seifeldein has published highly cited papers regarding gynecologic oncology and disorders of the female pelvic floor. For this project, Dr. Seifeldein will be responsible for searching the existing Assiut University database of MRI images of the female pelvis for volumes that portray uterine fibroids and leiomyosarcomsa. She will also work with her team to outline the suspected lesions on the images for the artificial intelligence/ machine learning team.

Taysir Solimon, MSc, PhD

Professor and Dean, Faculty of Computer & Information

Head, Department of Information Systems, Assiut University

Director, DMAC

Dr Soliman is Professor and Head of the Department of Information Systems, Bioinformatics Program Coordinator, and Dean of the Faculty of Computers and Information, Assiut University.. She supervises big data analytics and bioinformatics research groups conducting research in data science, data mining, and big data analytics for bioinformatics and other domains.  She was the focal point of DellEMC at Assuit University, and currently is the program coordinator at Google Assiut University developers group. Dr. Soliman was Assiut University PI at DAAD biodialog project for scientific exchange. She is currently the PI of COVID-19 big data analysis platform funded by the Egyptian Ministry of Higher Education and Research which will end within 4 months.  Dr. Soliman will serve as the PI/Core Lead of the DatAUB Data Management and Analysis core (DMAC) at Assiut University.She will assume the overall responsibility for the achievement of the goals of DMAC. Dr. Soliman will schedule

and conduct regular progress meetings and ensure DMAC compliance with all institutional guidelines and policies concerning the conduct of research.

Rick L Stevens, Ph.D

Department of Computer Science, University of Chicago

Co-Investigator, DatAUB (Project 2)

Dr Stevens is the Associate Laboratory Director of the Computing, Environment and Life Sciences Directorate at Argonne National Laboratory, and a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Chicago, with significant responsibility in delivering on the U.S. national initiative for Exascale computing and developingthe DOE initiative in Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Science. He is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and has received many national honors for his research, including an R&D 100 award. Professor Stevens will be responsible for the overall project management, scientific direction, and all other aspects of the project.

Joseph Vaughn, MD

Brother Andre Medical Center

Site PI, Val-IDA-te (Kenya) and Co-Investigator, DatAUB (Project 2)

Dr Vaughn is a hematologist who is on the staff of the Brother Andre Medical Center in Dandora/Nairobi Kenya. Dr. Vaughn will be responsible for all aspects of the project at BAMC, programmatic and financial. He will oversee the activities of all personnel, prepare all required reports, and evaluate and disseminate research data and resources generated during the grant period. He will lead recruitment efforts, data collection, analysis and interpretation.

Fangfang Xia, PhD

Department of Computer Science, University of Chicago

DatAUB (Project 2)

Dr Xia is a computer scientist in the Data Science and Learning Division at Argonne National Laboratory. He will assist Professor Stevens on implementation of strategies that facilitate coordination with the projects, implementation of strategies that foster data sharing, and will help implement strategies and provide regular guidance to the Graduate Research Assistant (GRA) on data quality assurance and quality control methods.

Liudmila Zhaunova, PhD

Flo Health Inc

Site PI, DatAUB (Project 2)

Dr Zhaunova is the Scientific Lead for Flo Health and is the key liaison between Flo and the DatAUB project academic partners. Through Dr Zhaunova, Flo Health has demonstrated a commitment to supporting research involving the menstrual cycle using appropriately anonymized data from their widely used application through "smart phones". As an example, Dr. Zhaunova collaborated with Professor Robert Norman from the University of Adelaide in Australia to characterize and publish menstrual cycle data from more than 1.5 million Flo users from all over the world. These data will be invaluable when characterizing menstrual cycles among African women. In addition, in partnership with Professor Tarun Jain of Northwestern University, Dr. Zhaunova initiated an app-based survey to characterize PCOS symptoms among worldwide Flo app users. These findings will be instrumental in identifying the prevalence of HMB symptoms in Africa. Dr Zhaunova will be involved in the day to day management of the Flo relationship and will facilitate interaction amongst the data scientists at the University of Assiut, FIGO, and Flo Health.