Source:BBC
Every day, more data about our lives is being generated than ever before. When it comes to saving lives, the bigger the data the better – but what to do with it all?
Ninety per cent of the data in the world has been created in the past two years alone, experts estimate – and the reason for that is technological innovation.
The internet, mobile phones, cameras, sensors, bank cards and social media are just some of the items responsible for the massive volume of “big data” that is currently amassed every single second.
As technology has advanced, so too have the opportunities for scientists.
Sequencing a human genome – all three billion letters of it, which denotes an individual’s unique DNA sequence – used to take years to achieve. Now it takes less than a week.
The information this provides is improving scientists’ understanding of the genetic basis of many human diseases.
And large-scale projects such as the 100,000 Genomes Project are starting togive some families a diagnosis for their children’s mystery conditions.
Image copyrightThinkstockThe more genomes are analysed, the greater the hope of new and more effective treatments for rare diseases.
Genomes are just one element of the move to capture more and more ‘big data’ in medicine and healthcare.
Very valuable resource
Take the humble patient record held by GPs.
There are around 60 million of them in the UK.
When combined with hospital data on everything from why people are admitted, to their scans, X-rays and pathology results, electronic patient records are a very valuable resource.
Prof Harry Hemingway, professor of clinical epidemiology and director of the Farr Institute of Health Informatics Research, is harnessing that data for the benefit of patients and the public.
Put simply, he wants to improve people’s health and the quality of their healthcare by analysing all kinds of anonymised information.
By linking up data from primary and secondary care, for example, he says it is possible to “identify the crucial time course of disease”.
Categories: Genetics, The Muslim Times