In Focus: Strengthening the Training of Medical Data Scientists
In an interview in Sysmex’ company magazine Xtra, Prof. Dr. Thomas Ganslandt (professor of Medical Informatics at the Mannheim Medical Faculty of the University of Heidelberg) describes the potentials of re-using routine clinical data for research in the Medical Informatics Initiative. The lack of qualified personnel currently is an important barrier towards this goal and needs to be addressed by various training measures. For this purpose, the MIRACUM consortium is developing a master’s program “Medical Data Science”, which opens up a broad field of competencies for its graduates. These include research activities, machine learning, personalized medicine and the development of health apps. Medical Data Scientists will play a key role in the utilization of information between all partners involved and realizing the potential of clinical data towards research and patient care.
Read more.
MIRACUM Summer School 2019 – once again a great experience
MIRACUM and the MII in the German Physicians Journal “Deutsches Ärzteblatt”
The current issue of the journal “Deutsches Ärzteblatt” (German Medical Journal) dedicated an extensive article to the Medical Informatics Initiative. In addition to an overview of the goals of the initiative, it also presents the four consortia and their use cases. Here, MIRACUM already gives an outlook for the next steps: On the one hand, a consortium-wide research portal will be established in the coming year, enabling researchers to obtain information about available patient records at the affiliated hospitals. On the other hand, approaches to enable future patient involvement via a patient portal will be pursued.
Although the consortia are in competition, it is emphasized that a strong focus should be placed on cross-consortia cooperation in working groups (Consent, Data Sharing, Interoperability and Communication) and projects such as POLAR (POLymedikation (Polymedication), Arzneimittelwechselwirkungen (Drug Interactions), Risiken (Risks)) and CORD (Collaboration On Rare Diseases) in order not to lose sight of the nationwide harmonization effort. This is also the case for upcoming projects such as the electronic patient file (ePA), which aims to be research-compatible by 2025.
You can find the full article here.
New member of the i2b2/tranSMART Foundation
MIRACUM is proud that Prof. Dr. Thomas Ganslandt from University Medicine Mannheim has been elected as a new member of the i2b2/tranSMART Foundation. The i2b2 and tranSMART platforms play an important role for the consortium as research repositories within the MIRACOLIX toolbox. We are looking forward to actively participating in their further coordination and development within the Foundation. Please find further information here.
“Else Kröner-Fresenius Centre for Digital Health” at MIRACUM site Dresden
Over the next ten years, the MIRACUM site in Dresden will receive a total of 40 million euros for the establishment of the Else Kröner-Fresenius Centre for Digital Health. In addition to the University Hospital and Medical Faculty of Dresden, the applicants include the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology and the Faculty of Computer Science at the TU Dresden.
The potential of digital technologies, sensors, wireless communication, robotics and machine learning for improving patient care is to be developed and evaluated in three “Application Rooms” reinforced by new professorships.
A “Living Lab” forms the practical framework for patient-oriented research and is intended to accelerate the introduction of innovations into everyday care.
Under the buzzwords “Data Integration (CR1)” and “Regulatory Affairs (CR2)”, two “Core Rooms” provide the necessary technical and organisational infrastructure as well as expert advice for the application rooms.
The two core rooms will be managed by the MIRACUM representatives in Dresden, Prof. Sedlmayr (CR1) and Prof. Schmitt (CR2). They will be strengthened by a total of three new professorships (Software as Medical Device, Regulatory Affairs, Implementation Research), which will be announced shortly.
Further information on the new Else Kröner-Fresenius Center for Digital Health Dresden can be found here.
Successful MIRACUM workshop at GMDS 2019
In a dedicated MIRACUM workshop as part of the GMDS 2019 conference program the MIRACUM team presented its current status and development plans of DIZ components. The presentations focused on the general DIC concept, the XNAT research image repository, the potential of SEEK for FAIR data integration, sharing and storage, and the integration of FHIR profiles as an intermediary layer in the ETL processes. MIRACUM members also presented discussions and preliminary results from the NSG taskforce data protection with a particular focus on the processes and options for federated record linkage scenarios. The workshop gained high attraction and even had to be moved to a larger lecture hall because of the large number of participants. Presentations are provided under Conference Presentations 2019.
MIRACUM congratulates Melanie Börries to the new Professorship in Bioinformatics
New Institute – New Head
We are pleased to announce that the Albert-Ludwigs University in Freiburg has approved the appointment of Dr. Dr. Melanie Börries as W3 Professor of Medical Bioinformatics on May 31st, 2019. As of June 1st, Professor Dr. Dr. Börries is also the Head of the newly founded Institute of Medical Bioinformatics and Systems Medicine within the Department of Biometry, Epidemiology and Medical Bioinformatics, University Medical Center Freiburg. Melanie Börries studied Medicine in Lübeck and received her MD in 2004. She participated in the MDPhD fellowship program at the Biozentrum in Basel (Switzerland) and received her PhD in Cell Biology in 2005. At the same time, she continued her clinical studies in Cardiology in Bern (Switzerland) followed by a PostDoc in Freiburg, with a focus on Pharmacology and Toxicology. 2009 onward, Melanie Börries established her group at the FRIAS and at the Institute for Molecular Medicine and Cellular Research in Freiburg. Her focus shifted to Systems Biology, clinically relevant collaborations, and applied methods in Bioinformatics benefiting patients. Since 2013 she was junior group leader for Systems Biology and Systems Medicine at the DKFZ partner site Freiburg within the German Cancer Consortium (DKTK).
In her role as Head of Medical Bioinformatics and Systems Medicine, she is affiliated with the MIRACUM project. Here, Melanie Börries is currently leading Use Case 3 “Molekulares Tumorboard – From Knowledge to Action – Support for Molecular Tumor Boards”. Her group is instrumental in developing sequencing pipelines (MIRACUM pipeline) for individual patients and for data integration, representation and visualization in order to improve decision support for Molecular Tumor Boards.
RECUR: A Nationwide Registry for Recurrent Urolithiasis builds on MIRACUM infrastructure
Another step in health care research: German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) to fund Nationwide Registry for Recurrent Urolithiasis
Urinary stone disease is a widespread disease with a high recurrence rate. Covering a period of 5 years, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) will fund the establishment of a Nationwide Registry for Recurrent Urolithiasis in the Upper Urinary Tract (RECUR). The project led by urologist Prof. Martin Schoenthaler (Freiburg) is one of six projects that will receive financial support as part of the BMBF initiative to set up exemplary registers for health services research.
The digital stone register was developed under the patronage of the German Society of Urology (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Urologie e.V., DGU). It is supported by DGU working groups on Urological Research (Arbeitskreis Urologische Forschung, AuF) and Urolithiasis (Arbeitskreis Harnsteine).
The registry will make use of the digital infrastructure of the BMBF’s Medical Informatics Initiative (MI-I). It will accomplish existing data from the hospital information systems together with patient derived data provided via a new patient app. This project will be implemented as an additional use case for the MI-I MIRACUM consortium. Urologists and medical informatics specialists from MIRACUM centres Dresden, Erlangen, Frankfurt, Freiburg, Giessen, Greifswald, Magdeburg, Mainz, Mannheim and Marburg have joined forces to improve the structural and procedural framework for patients with recurrent urolithiasis. This includes advanced diagnostic algorithms and treatment paths.
The kick-off meeting for RECUR will be held in Frankfurt University Hospital on Tuesday, July 2nd 2019.
Please find the DGU press release here.
MIRACUM investigators publish on „Leveraging Data Treasures”
“The Future of Medicine” (Editors E. Böttinger, J. zu Putlitz) has just been published and the book launch panel discussion will be in Berlin on 3rd of June 2019 starting at 6pm.
MIRACUM researchers Ulli Prokosch, Thomas Ganslandt and Martin Sedlmayr have contributed a chapter on „Leveraging Data Treasures – Perspectives for Biomedical Informatics” in which they critically reflect on
- Big Data challenges,
- opportunities, but also recent failures of AI applications,
- real world data analysis,
- the international OHDSI project and its uptake in Germany as well as
- the German medical informatics initiative.
If you happen to be around, why not join? Mail to veranstaltung@mwv-berlin.de for details.
MIRACUM Symposium review within the GMDS YouTube Channel
Two months ago the 2nd MIRACUM Symposium took place at the Johannes Gutenberg-University in Mainz on March 28th and 29th, 2019. The GMDS e.V. accompanied the event on film and compiled some impressions in an informative documentation. In addition to excerpts from the lectures, the speakers provide additional insights into the challenges of digitization in medicine in interviews. The video is now available under this link on the GMDS e.V. YouTube Channel.
