During the 2014 Big Data in Biomedicine conference, Stanford bioengineer and geneticist Russ Altman, MD, PhD, spoke about the possibility of collecting data directly from patients, via social media or smartphones, and using it to compliment traditional methods of gathering medical information to give clinicians an unprecedented capability to assess individuals' state of health.
"One of the most exciting things is the ability to combine data at multiple levels," he says in the video above. "We have an amazing ability to collect molecular data, cellular data, organism data from electronic medical records and population data about what's happening at the population and global scale. The beauty of informatics is we don't have to be tied to one of those levels."
At the upcoming Big Data in Biomedicine conference, Altman will moderate a discussion with Kathy Hudson, PhD, deputy director for Science, Outreach, and Policy at the National Institutes of Health. Hudson leads the science policy, legislation, and communications efforts of the NIH and serves as a senior advisor to the NIH Director Francis Collins, MD, PhD. She is responsible for creating major new strategic and scientific initiatives and was a key architect of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences and the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative.
Registration for the conference, which will be held May 20-22 at Stanford, is currently open. More details about the program can be found on its website.
Previously: Big data used to help identify patients at risk of deadly high-cholesterol disorder, Examining the potential of big data to transform health care and Registration for Big Data in Biomedicine conference now open
