On 28 and 29 October 2015, the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB) of the University of Luxembourg will be gathering together various actors involved in the large amounts of biomedical research data on the molecular causes of diseases.
The 3rd International Systems Biomedicine Symposium will assemble representatives from different interest groups including laboratory researchers, patient organisations, pharmaceutical industry, investors, policy makers and IT companies, all of which form part of dealing with the significant data that accompanies biomedical research to enable early diagnosis and personalised medicine for diseases.
The event, entitled 'Big Data in Health Care - Challenges, Innovations and Implementation', will look at the issues involved in handling big data in the field of health research. On the one hand, special IT hardware is required to allow researchers the means to tackled these enormous amount of data, whilst this information must be simultaneouly handled with care to avoid compromising privacy or intellectual property.
"Researchers, companies, patient organisations and policy makers need to work together intensively to act in synchrony," urged Professor. Dr. Rudi Balling, Director of the LCSB and initiator of the conference. "At our symposium we bring relevant stakeholder groups together in order to intensify exchange".
Director of Operations at the LCSB, Dr. Erica Monfardini, shares this opinion on the need for dialogue following her longstanding experience in innovation and pharmaceuticals. She claimed that "The companies are highly interested in collaborating with academic research on topics that still remain a challenge", with "big data being one of them", before advocating that "A culture of open information exchange should be boosted. At the same time, the companies have to ensure that openness does not risk their competitive advantage. Therefore, they aim for common standards and send high-ranking representatives to our conference".
Policy makers reportedly showed a strong interest in the topic of the conference, with Dr. Erica Monfardini explaining that "Their motivation is slightly different. Though like industry, this group also aims for a clear and binding framework for handling big data in the health care sector".
"In this context LCSB's scientists can have a great impact for all parties involved - not only as discussion partners: LCSB's IT expertise in the area of health research is among the leaders worldwide," concluded Rudi Balling, who promoted the conference as an important step towards this. "We have the knwoledge and experience to contribute to the development of common standards, that live up to the needs of all parties in terms of research and privacy. This is the know-how we can bring to the table".
