Webinar: Development of disease signatures and personalized medicine

The search for personalised medicine and new diagnosis for mental diseases

The Human Brain Project (HBP) plans to use anonymised data from hospitals throughout Europe and to use that data, among other things, to discover new ‘disease signatures’. Disease signatures hold the potential for researchers to identify the biological changes associated with a disease and opening possibilities for early diagnosis and personalized medicine.

But how can the HBP make sure that the data governance stays within the lines of the law and how can people’s data be handled in a morally justifyable way?  In order to open this discussion a number of the leading experts in the field we invited to discuss these questions including:

• What does anonymous data actually mean, and how hard is it to achieve this?
• What is personalised medicine and what are disease signatures?
• What are the challenges and opportunities of personalised medicine?
• What might the social and ethical issues be that arise from these developments?

In the webinar on “Multi-level patient data federation and the development of personalised medicine for brain diseases”, eight experts from a broad variety of fields, presented their views on these questions from their own knowledgeable perspectives.

The webinar has been recorded and the presentations and commentary sessions can be watched back below.

The webinar included two themes:

• First theme on Multi-level brain data federation and protection
• Second theme: Development of ‘disease signatures’ and personalised medicine

Recordings from the webinar can be accessed below.

Speakers include:

• Emilio Mordini, Managing Director and President of the Centre for Science, Society and Citizenship (CSSC)
• Doug Brown, Director of Research and Development, Alzheimer’s Society
• Barbara Prainsack, Professor, King’s College London, Department of Social Science, Health & Medicine
• Gregor Wolbring, Associate Professor, University of Calgary, Faculty of Medicine, Dept. of Community Health Sciences, Stream Community Rehabilitation and Disability Studies