INTEGRATED BIOMEDICAL INFORMATICS FOR THE MANAGEMENT OF CEREBRAL ANEURYSMS

@neurIST will develop an IT infrastructure for the management of heterogeneous data associated with the diagnosis and treatment of cerebral aneurysms. Data spans all length scales, from molecular, through cellular to tissue, organ and patient representations. Data are also heterogeneous in form (e.g. text, image and other symbolic structures) and context (from guidelines based on the broadest epidemiological studies to patient-specific data from EHRs). New methods are required to manage, integrate and interrogate the breadth of data and to make it accessible to the end-user.@neurIST seeks channels for the integration of all data sources and their exploitation. Three WPs are dedicated respectively to the collection, processing and integration of these data. Another will develop four integrative suites for clinical and industrial exploitation. Two IT platforms will federate heterogeneous computing and data access services providing immediate application to other disease processes. The primary theme of @neurIST is to develop vertical integration across data structures and across length scales, but also horizontal integration at every level of abstraction, from semantic access to information sources, to complex data processing, knowledge representation, structuring and fusion.@neurIST will transform the management of cerebral aneurysms by providing new insight, personalised risk assessment, and methods for the design of improved treatment. This level of integration is extraordinarily ambitious. Therefore only a focused effort on a single disease process can credibly address the challenge. Still, the economic and societal impact in Europe will be significant. Personalised risk assessment alone could reduce unnecessary treatment by 50% or more, with concomitant savings estimated in the order of thousands million of Euros per annum. The approach will be extendable to other disease processes and scalable to federate a large number of clinical centres and public databases.