BFAM Member Spotlights

Meet the members of the Stanford Medicine Black Faculty Affinity Meetings (BFAM), a network created through OFDD's Community Support Initiative. BFAM is intended to provide networking and social engagement opportunities for Stanford Medicine faculty across all clinical lines and departments.

Todd Coleman, PhD

Bioengineering

Associate Professor, Bioengineering
Executive Committee Member, Human Performance Initiative

Research Interests
Applied Probability, Biomedical Technologies, Neuroscience

Full Stanford Profile

Associate Professor of Bioengineering and, by courtesy, of Electrical Engineering

(650) 721-2581

toddcol@stanford.edu

Bio

Todd P. Coleman is an Associate Professor in the Department of Bioengineering, and by courtesy, Electrical Engineering at Stanford University. He received B.S. degrees in electrical engineering (summa cum laude), as well as computer engineering (summa cum laude) from the University of Michigan (Go Blue). He received M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from MIT in electrical engineering and computer science. He did postdoctoral studies at MIT and Mass General Hospital in quantitative neuroscience. He previously was a faculty member in the Departments of Electrical & Computer Engineering and Bioengineering at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and the University of California, San Diego, respectively. Dr. Coleman’s research is very multi-disciplinary, using tools from applied probability, physiology, and bioelectronics. Examples include, for instance, optimal transport methods in high-dimensional uncertainty quantification and developing technologies and algorithms to monitor and modulate physiology of the nervous systems in the brain and visceral organs. He has served as a Principal Investigator on grants from the NSF, NIH, Department of Defense, and multiple private foundations. Dr. Coleman is an inventor on 10 granted US patents. He has been selected as a Gilbreth Lecturer for the National Academy of Engineering, a TEDMED speaker, and a Fellow of IEEE as well as the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. He recently served as Chair of the National Academies Standing Committee on Biotechnology Capabilities and National Security Needs.

Publications

Spontaneous enteric nervous system activity generates contractile patterns prior to maturation of gastrointestinal motility. Neurogastroenterology and motility Dershowitz, L. B., Bueno Garcia, H., Perley, A. S., Coleman, T. P., Kaltschmidt, J. A. 2024: e14890 More

Abstract

Spontaneous neuronal network activity is essential to the functional maturation of central and peripheral circuits, yet whether this is a feature of enteric nervous system development has yet to be established. Although enteric neurons are known exhibit electrophysiological properties early in embryonic development, no connection has been drawn between this neuronal activity and the development of gastrointestinal (GI) motility patterns.We use ex vivo GI motility assays with newly developed unbiased computational analyses to identify GI motility patterns across mouse embryonic development.We find a previously unknown pattern of neurogenic contractions termed "clustered ripples" that arises spontaneously at embryonic day 16.5, an age earlier than any identified mature GI motility patterns. We further show that these contractions are driven by nicotinic cholinergic signaling.Clustered ripples are neurogenic contractile activity that arise from spontaneous ENS activity and precede all known forms of neurogenic GI motility. This earliest motility pattern requires nicotinic cholinergic signaling, which may inform pharmacology for enhancing GI motility in preterm infants.

View details for DOI 10.1111/nmo.14890

View details for PubMedID 39118231
Non-invasive ventral cervical magnetoneurography as a proxy of in vivo lipopolysaccharide-induced inflammation. Communications biology Bu, Y., Burks, J., Yang, K., Prince, J., Borna, A., Coe, C. L., Simmons, A., Tu, X. M., Baker, D., Kimball, D., Rao, R., Shah, V., Huang, M., Schwindt, P., Coleman, T. P., Lerman, I. 2024; 7 (1): 893 More

Abstract

Maintenance of autonomic homeostasis is continuously calibrated by sensory fibers of the vagus nerve and sympathetic chain that convey compound action potentials (CAPs) to the central nervous system. Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) intravenous challenge reliably elicits a robust inflammatory response that can resemble systemic inflammation and acute endotoxemia. Here, we administered LPS intravenously in nine healthy subjects while recording ventral cervical magnetoneurography (vcMNG)-derived CAPs at the rostral Right Nodose Ganglion (RNG) and the caudal Right Carotid Artery (RCA) with optically pumped magnetometers (OPM). We observed vcMNG RNG and RCA neural firing rates that tracked changes in TNF-α levels in the systemic circulation. Further, endotype subgroups based on high and low IL-6 responders segregate RNG CAP frequency (at 30-120 min) and based on high and low IL-10 response discriminate RCA CAP frequency (at 0-30 min). These vcMNG tools may enhance understanding and management of the neuroimmune axis that can guide personalized treatment based on an individual's distinct endophenotype.

View details for DOI 10.1038/s42003-024-06435-8

View details for PubMedID 39075164

View details for PubMedCentralID 3278937
An exact mathematical description of computation with transient spatiotemporal dynamics in a complex-valued neural network COMMUNICATIONS PHYSICS Budzinski, R. C., Busch, A. N., Mestern, S., Martin, E., Liboni, L. B., Pasini, F. W., Minac, J., Coleman, T., Inoue, W., Muller, L. E. 2024; 7 (1) More

View details for DOI 10.1038/s42005-024-01728-0

View details for Web of Science ID 001271213100003
Machine learning based DNA melt curve profiling enables automated novel genotype detection. BMC bioinformatics Boussina, A., Langouche, L., Obirieze, A. C., Sinha, M., Mack, H., Leineweber, W., Aralar, A., Pride, D. T., Coleman, T. P., Fraley, S. I. 2024; 25 (1): 185 More

Abstract

Surveillance for genetic variation of microbial pathogens, both within and among species, plays an important role in informing research, diagnostic, prevention, and treatment activities for disease control. However, large-scale systematic screening for novel genotypes remains challenging in part due to technological limitations. Towards addressing this challenge, we present an advancement in universal microbial high resolution melting (HRM) analysis that is capable of accomplishing both known genotype identification and novel genotype detection. Specifically, this novel surveillance functionality is achieved through time-series modeling of sequence-defined HRM curves, which is uniquely enabled by the large-scale melt curve datasets generated using our high-throughput digital HRM platform. Taking the detection of bacterial genotypes as a model application, we demonstrate that our algorithms accomplish an overall classification accuracy over 99.7% and perform novelty detection with a sensitivity of 0.96, specificity of 0.96 and Youden index of 0.92. Since HRM-based DNA profiling is an inexpensive and rapid technique, our results add support for the feasibility of its use in surveillance applications.

View details for DOI 10.1186/s12859-024-05747-0

View details for PubMedID 38730317
Emerging wearable technologies for multisystem monitoring and treatment of Parkinson's disease: a narrative review. Frontiers in network physiology Kehnemouyi, Y. M., Coleman, T. P., Tass, P. A. 2024; 4: 1354211 More

Abstract

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a chronic movement disorder characterized by a variety of motor and nonmotor comorbidities, including cognitive impairment, gastrointestinal (GI) dysfunction, and autonomic/sleep disturbances. Symptoms typically fluctuate with different settings and environmental factors and thus need to be consistently monitored. Current methods, however, rely on infrequent rating scales performed in clinic. The advent of wearable technologies presents a new avenue to track objective measures of PD comorbidities longitudinally and more frequently. This narrative review discusses and proposes emerging wearable technologies that can monitor manifestations of motor, cognitive, GI, and autonomic/sleep comorbidities throughout the daily lives of PD individuals. This can provide more wholistic insight into real-time physiological versus pathological function with the potential to better assess treatments during clinical trials and allow physicians to optimize treatment regimens. Additionally, this narrative review briefly examines novel applications of wearables as therapy for PD patients.

View details for DOI 10.3389/fnetp.2024.1354211

View details for PubMedID 38414636

View details for PubMedCentralID PMC10896901

see all 84 publications

BFAM Member Spotlights

Todd Coleman, PhD

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