EU scientists to create computerised patients
Promoting the development of personalised medicines
A European Union (EU)-funded research project is developing computerised models of patients, with sufficient details to enable doctors to create tailored health treatments, promoting the development of personalised medicines.
Germany’s Max Planck Society is leading the €1.48m ITFOM (Information Technology Future of Medicine) project, working with 25 research institutes and industry groups from Europe and elsewhere.
The digital models will include a patient’s genetic and physiological make-up, using computing, IT storage, networking and modelling technologies.
The European Commission said this ‘will enable doctors to use a patient's individual genome to inform every state of disease management, including diagnosis, treatment and follow-up. The model could be adapted to meet individual patient health demands’.
Participant Professor Hans Westerhoff, of the UK’s University of Manchester, said: ‘Making personalised medicine a reality will...require fundamental advances in the computational sciences. It promises to be unique and groundbreaking because people could access their own health model.’