India kicks off initiative to build health data sets that are representative of Indian population
The Indian Council of Medical Research, India’s apex body for biomedical research, is undertaking a national initiative to create high-quality medical data sets representing diversity. of the Indian population.
It has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) to collaborate in this effort, with ARTPARK (AI & Robotics Technology Park), a nonprofit organization promoted by IISc, as a partner of them for technology development and program management.
According to a press statement, a group promoting the initiative will help standardize the collection of data from partner health organizations and manage those data with the aim of making them available to the wider community. larger group of researchers and innovators in India.
WHY IT IMPORTANT
The IISc said in a statement that the development of a curated and quality medical imaging dataset that captures the diversity of people, contexts and needs of India will drive research and innovation aimed at promoting research and innovation. fulfill the promise of AI in improving access to healthcare and increasing employee productivity.
Such data, it adds, will also be instrumental in evaluating AI-based tools, thus accelerating their deployment.
TREND TO BIGGER WOMAN
Other population health initiatives in Asia-Pacific also seek to harness population-level data to generate insights into respective health issues and improvement needs. health outcomes.
For one, Singapore’s Precision Health Research is conducting a large-scale population study with gene technology company Illumina to build a comprehensive precision medicine database to generate insights into Asian genomic diversity. and diseases specific to Asia. Another Singaporean institution, the National Cancer Center Singapore, is participating in the effort to build a local clinical genomic database to gain insights for better patient outcomes. cancer patient.
ON PROFILE
To applaud this national initiative, Govindan Rangarajan, professor and director of IISc, said: “Our goal is to bring together the best of technology, data science and medical research. This partnership with ICMR will enable us to do exactly that by generating invaluable data sets to drive the next generation of innovation for India and the world. .”
