Julia has a growing library of packages for improving medicine, healthcare, public health, and biomedical research. In contrast to molecular and cellular biology, this mini-symposium will highlight the current state of Julia in human health-related fields, with a focus on getting started with Julia for research, tutorials, reproducibility, interoperability, and practical applications.
Introduction:
Julia offers substantial advantages for biomedical and health research, where workflows often rely on proprietary software, fragmented toolchains, and limited reproducibility. As a high‑performance, open language, Julia provides a strong foundation for open science and transparent, shareable workflows in clinical and public health contexts.
In this mini-symposium, we will highlight current use cases, focusing on practical applications, guidance on leveraging available Julia packages, and comparisons with other ecosystems such as Python, R, and MATLAB. We will also explore strategies for interoperability with other languages in domains where Julia packages are still emerging.
Topics of this mini-symposium include, but are not limited to: Medical Data Acquisition, Medical Data Processing, Health Equity, and Quantitative Pharmacology.
Confirmed Speakers:
- Jacob Zelko (Northeastern University)
- Carlos Castillo Passi (Stanford University)
- Elisabeth Roesch (Sanofi)
Objective:
- This mini-symposium aims to:
- Explore the use of Julia in biomedical and health applications.
- Showcase the power of Julia via applications.
- Provide tutorials about specific packages.
- Identify gaps within JuliaHealth compared to other ecosystems.
Agenda:
For our mini-symposium, we plan for 3 hours across a single track (although we are open to expanding tracks or adjusting talk lengths depending on submissions). We imagine four 30-minute blocks where speakers can give 10-minute talks or 5-minute lightning talks. We will also have two 30-minute blocks for package or ecosystem tutorials.
Call for Proposals:
This call is open to researchers, developers, informatics specialists, and students at the forefront of integrating Julia software into biomedical and health research and applications. Whether you are developing innovative tools, enhancing existing methodologies, or exploring new software applications in the biomedical field, we invite you to participate!
Carlos Castillo-Passi began his academic journey at Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile (PUC), where he earned both a degree and an MSc in Electrical Engineering in 2018. He then pursued a PhD in Biological and Medical Engineering through a joint program between PUC and King’s College London (KCL), completing it with maximum distinction in 2024. His research focused on the design of low-field cardiac MRI sequences using open-source MRI simulations. In 2023, his work on open-source MRI simulations was highlighted by the editor of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (MRM). Furthermore, his application of this work to low-field cardiac MRI earned him the Early Career Award in Basic Science from the Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance (SCMR) in 2024. In addition to his research, Carlos is an active member of JuliaHealth, contributing to the development of high-performance, reproducible tools for health and medicine. In 2025, he joined Stanford University as a postdoctoral researcher, where he continues his work in cardiac MRI and open-source technologies.