The new European project HEREDITARY (HetERogeneous sEmantic Data integratIon for for guT-bRain interplaY), aimed at transforming the way we approach disease identification and prepare therapeutic responses, is underway.
Coordinated by the University of Padua (Department of Computer Engineering), it involves 17 Partners: the University of Turin, Radboud University (NL), Tugraz Technische Universitaet (A), CRG-CERCA (ES), Aalborg University (DK), FEUGA (ES), KU Leuven Universiteit (BE), Universidade Nova de Lisboa (P), EUPALS (BE), EBC (BE), University of Colorado Denver (USA), EMBL (DE), CNAG (ES), HESSO (CH), ONTO SIRMA (BG), SURF BV (NL).
The project was funded by the European Union under the Horizon Europe research programme, GA 101137074.
On September 13th, 2024, Observa participated in a productive meeting at the Linguistic Research Center of the NOVA University of Lisbon. During the visit, the topics of terminology, linguistics and citizen engagement within the Hereditary project were explored in depth. The discussion was extremely valuable, providing new food for thought and insights that will be integrated into future activities. This experience strengthened the collaboration between Observa and UNL, allowing both to advance with greater clarity in their areas of specialization.
In August 2024, Observa visited the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. There, they explored the potential of artificial intelligence for early diagnosis of neurodegenerative diseases and discussed ways to communicate with patients and the public. This meeting represented an important step forward in the understanding and application of new technologies in the medical field.
In July 2024, Observa visited the Department of Information Engineering of the University of Padua to talk with the Hereditary Project Coordinator, Gianmaria Silvello. During the meeting, federated learning, ontology, and artificial intelligence (AI) were discussed in relation to the project.
You will soon find some excerpts of the conversation below.
On April 18th , 2024, Observa traveled to Nijmegen, the Netherlands, to meet Hereditary colleagues from Radboud University Medical Center and learn more about their main areas of work: computational pathology, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence.
Watch the interviews with Nils Kohn (Radboudumc) and Francesco Ciompi (Radboudumc) here.
The first meeting of the Consortium of the project, which is led by the University of Padua, took place on January 25th with the aim of launching the first initiatives regarding the establishment of working groups to form the interactive platforms that will allow the connection of data coming from different databases, including artificial intelligence resources.
The project will activate various information resources to explore medical knowledge in a comprehensive and innovative way by building a solid and secure system that integrates multimodal health data (including genetic data) ensuring maximum compliance with transnational privacy protection policies. The project will be operational in two therapeutic fields: neurological disorders and gut-brain interplay.
Harmonizing and linking heterogeneous sources of clinical, genomic and environmental data at a large scale will allow clinicians, researchers, innovators and policy makers to better understand these diseases, with the opportunity to develop more effective therapeutic strategies and innovative healthcare solutions.
Observa will coordinate working groups among different stakeholders involved in this effort of comparison and understanding of diseases.
In the first year of the project, Observa will dedicate itself to the planning of a prototype event, called Health Social Laboratory, which will involve the project stakeholders in different aspects of the Hereditary research process, such as technology, terminology, or ethics and society. The efforts for the design of this laboratory will involve a large number of collaborators, such as clinicians, researchers, patients and many others. At the same time, Observa will focus on the elements of scientific communication specific to the project and will dedicate itself to various dissemination activities.
Follow the Hereditary project on the Observa YouTube channel
