# Jay, software engineer using NEO4J in Biomedical applications

**URL:** <https://community.neo4j.com/t/jay-software-engineer-using-neo4j-in-biomedical-applications/12522>\
**Category:** Introduce-Yourself\
**Created:** [December 4, 2019, 7:15pm UTC](https://community.neo4j.com/t/jay-software-engineer-using-neo4j-in-biomedical-applications/12522 "2019-12-04T19:15:48Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![jayped007](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex021/user_avatar/community.neo4j.com/jayped007/32/7820_2.png) [@jayped007](https://community.neo4j.com/u/jayped007)\
**Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 7:15pm UTC](https://community.neo4j.com/t/jay-software-engineer-using-neo4j-in-biomedical-applications/12522/1 "2019-12-04T19:15:48Z")

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Hi,

My name is Jay and I am a software developer at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC).

We have been using NEO4J for storage and querying of medical terminologies like SNOMED CT. SNOMED CT is a semantic terminology which is not a simple hierarchical tree. NEO4J allows this terminology to be represented in its full definition and allows it to be queried using graph queries.

Greetings to all, and I am very glad to be part of this group.

Here is a link to software in GITHUB which we developed at UNMC that loads a SNOMED CT release into a NEO4J graph: It is python-based and uses the py2neo library to interface with NEO4J.

> **[snomed-database-loader/NEO4J at master · IHTSDO/snomed-database-loader](https://github.com/IHTSDO/snomed-database-loader/tree/master/NEO4J)**
>
> master/NEO4J

Jay

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**Author:** ![michael.hunger](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex021/user_avatar/community.neo4j.com/michael.hunger/32/27377_2.png) [@michael.hunger](https://community.neo4j.com/u/michael.hunger)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2019, 2:55am UTC](https://community.neo4j.com/t/jay-software-engineer-using-neo4j-in-biomedical-applications/12522/2 "2019-12-09T02:55:12Z")

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Hi Jay,

this is really cool, do you have an article somewhere that describes your work in more detail?  
Esp. with examples for querying and integration in other systems?

Cheers, Michael

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**Author:** ![jayped007](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex021/user_avatar/community.neo4j.com/jayped007/32/7820_2.png) [@jayped007](https://community.neo4j.com/u/jayped007)\
**Post date:** [December 11, 2019, 12:23pm UTC](https://community.neo4j.com/t/jay-software-engineer-using-neo4j-in-biomedical-applications/12522/3 "2019-12-11T12:23:09Z")

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Hi Michael,

There is a paper that describes this work, actually from a couple of years ago. We have continued to use NEO4J for Biomedical applications including the use for tracking tissues in a Biobank.

An alternative database approach for management of SNOMED CT and improved patient data queries  
WS Campbell, J Pedersen, JC McClay, P Rao, D Bastola, JR Campbell  
Journal of biomedical informatics 57, 350-357

I think this link should work for examining the paper.

> **[81119832.pdf](https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/81119832.pdf)**
>
> 834.91 KB

Jay