DR. KAMAL’S LECTURE - “BIASES AND DECISION MAKING, A CYTOGENETICS EXAMPLE IN BARRETT’S ESOPHAGUS.”

On February 26, 2021, Dr. Mohammad Kamal, CEO of OmniPathology gave a zoom seminar to graduate and undergraduate students at California State University, Fresno as part of the Department of Biology Colloquium Seminar Series. Dr. Kamal’s lecture was titled, “Biases and Decision Making, a Cytogenetics Example in Barrett’s Esophagus.” The lecture introduced the students to various types of biases using Barrett’s esophagus as an example. It further introduced the students to Barrett’s esophagus as a preneoplastic condition. Dr. Kamal showed images of how progression to cancer can be detected with histologic evaluation of dysplastic lesions. He discussed how advanced cytogenetics techniques, using Barrett’s Fluorescent In-Situ Hybridization (FISH) testing, can help the pathologist overcome various types of biases such as sampling bias, Hindsight bias, and confirmation bias, which can be encountered during the histologic evaluation. The lecture was followed by a Q & A session that lasted 45 minutes and demonstrated a high level of engagement by the students.