SAM PANTHAKY/AFP/Getty Images
The use of big data in the medical field is just taking off as researchers and scientists begin to explore the capabilities of employing the analyzation of large swaths of data to improve treatment and work on new remedies. Big data generally refers to data sets large enough to require new methods of capturing and analyzing, and as more data becomes available in this increasingly digital world, more information can be harnessed and processed from it. The medical field has a world of possibilities — indeed, the healthcare industry, particularly in the U.S., is looking toward a future of having a better grasp on big data as wearable technology can provide more data on patients. And now research from the University of Leeds has taken the focus in medicine a step further.
VISUAL CONTEXT: THE VALUE OF BIG DATA ANALYTICS
Source: Wikibon
The institution is creating a database that will give doctors access to detailed information about similar previous patients when treating new cases of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma blood cancers. The database will store cancer cell samples and anonymous medical records of patients with the diseases in the Yorkshire region of the U.K. Medical Xpress quotes David Westhead, Professor of Bioinformatics at the University of Leeds:
It is increasingly clear that cancer in general and lymphoma in particular is a highly variable disease. Individuals previously diagnosed in the same broad categories may have diseases that are quite different when you look at the fundamental biology of their cancers. This database enables us to take a step towards more individualised treatment.
The project is funded by the charity Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research, and is revolutionary in that research into non-Hodgkin lymphoma requires individualized treatment for patients, but using big data to develop a bigger, clearer picture of the cancer is hoped to then enable researchers to understand in greater depth and breadth the typology of blood cancers and their effects on the ill.
And researchers are not the only ones interested in the possibilities that exist linking big data and medicine. Google has made investments in the big data/medical field. Its investment branch — Google Ventures — recently made a second investment in Flatiron Health, a startup that herds cancer treatment records to make patient needs clearer. The company has also put Andrew Conrad, director at Google[x], the secretive arm of Google’s advancing technology branch, on the board of Flatiron Health. The company is clearly interested in the progress to be made between cancer research and the work of big data organizations. And if Google considers it worthy, everyone else usually ends up doing so eventually.
