Interview with Prof Viceconti on the Big Data Public Private Forum

Big Data Public Private Forum (BIG) is an EC funded initiative working towards the definition and implementation of a clear strategy that tackles the necessary efforts in terms of research and innovation, while also it provides a major boost for technology adoption and supporting actions for the successful implementation of the Big Data economy. Building an industrial community around Big Data in Europe is the priority of this project, together with setting up the necessary collaboration and dissemination infrastructure to link technology suppliers, integrators and leading user organizations.

Prof Viceconti’s main work over the last few years has been leading the VPH Institute (Virtual Physiological Human), a large initiative within the eHealth unit. The overall goal of this work has been on combining data and computational models from across Europe to instantiate a complete in silico model of the human biological system from the whole body level down to the cell level.

During the interview, the most interesting concepts that emerges are:  

• a k-anonymity membrane - where on one side we have specific patient data which must be controlled and on the other anonymised versions which can be used for research. Sometimes one needs to pass data back to a specific patient because of analysis carried out in research. Having a two way membrane would be useful.

• a eHealth data value chain - at the moment health data which is passed around is 100% observational (e.g. blood pressure or heart rate) being able to smoothly combine this with data resulting from computational models would be of great benefit.

The whole interview can be watched either in a small or large version with the ability to jump to specific segments. The interview is also available as an audio-only mp3 file. 

For more information on the project visit http://big-project.eu/