In 2013 we celebrated two magnificent achievements in biology: the 60th Anniversary of Watson and Crick's DNA double helix discovery and the 10th Anniversary of the completion of the Human Genome Project.
When the Human Genome Project began, we knew the genetic basis of about 60 rare diseases caused by defects in a single gene. Today, we know the genetic basis of nearly 5000 diseases.
According to Dr. Eric Green of the National Human Genome Research Institute, the NIH’s vision integrates all knowledge from the biological basis of the Genome to a “healthcare implementation of genomic approaches.”
And today, dramatic technology advances have put the therapeutic promise of the Human Genome within reach.
So it was with great pleasure that I accepted a special recognition from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy for SAP’s own contribution with the Stanford School of Medicine and the National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT Heidelberg) to help accelerate the Human Genome Project’s therapeutic promise of personalized medicine.
- White House Press Release: Data to Knowledge to Action Event and Event Videos
- New Announcements: Data to Knowledge to Action (includes SAP abstract)
- Progress by Federal Agencies: Data to Knowledge to Action
- National Science Foundation News and Video Interviews
President Obama sponsored the U.S. Federal Big Data R&D Initiatives in 2012, allocating $200 million for Federal Agencies to innovate Big Data tools and technologies to enhance “scientific discovery, environmental and biomedical research, education, and national security.”
In its 2013 launch, Data to Knowledge to Action was emphasized. The National Science Foundation (NSF) and Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) joined the White House (OSTP) in honoring new and “inspiring collaborations” between industry, academia, agencies and non-profits that are interrogating huge data sets to derive greater consumer value and grow the U.S. economy.
SAP’s work with Stanford and NCT using the HANA Platform for healthcare was honored for enabling researchers, clinicians, hospitals and payers to integrate and interpret biological, lifestyle and clinical data to
- guide decisions for patients regarding diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disease, and
- map drug development to the biology of disease.
SAP’s research partners include well-known genomics pioneers Dr. Carlos D. Bustamante and Dr. Euan Ashley at the Stanford School of Medicine and Professor Dr. Christof von Kalle at the National Center for Tumor Diseases in Heidelberg, Germany.
- Dr. Bustamante is a Principal Investigator of the ClinGen project to build the country's National Database of Clinically Relevant Genomic Variants. He is also featured in a video in the Smithsonian’s Human Genome Exhibition.
- Dr. Ashley led the team that carried out the first medical interpretation of a human genome. He currently directs Stanford’s Clinical Genome Service and the Center for Inherited Cardiovascular Disease.
- Dr. von Kalle is a clinical specialist in hematology/oncology at NCT. He is internationally renowned for his work on precision medicine in stem cell research, mutation analysis and gene transfer.
In Carlos Bustamante's lab, researchers are using the SAP HANA Platform for healthcare for real-time analytics of genetic variants that contribute to population health and disease. Discovering patterns of variation within and among different populations can help clarify how genes contribute to disease susceptibility in humans. To date, Stanford has seen from 17-600X faster computations in analyzing their genomics data. Stanford’s work will ultimately lead to new treatments targeted for autism and cardiovascular disease, both of which are public health concerns.
In clinical care, Dr. von Kalle is piloting a Medical Explorer tool based on SAP HANA. Physicians and researchers can securely analyze clinical and genomic data in real-time for patient breakthroughs in cancer diagnostics and treatment options. Next steps will emphasize how to predict disease risk and better match patients to clinical trials.
In other collaborations highlighted by the White House,
Amazon Web Services and NASA will offer space-based data about the Earth to “citizen scientists” through the NASA Earth eXchange (NEX) collaboration network.
Novartis, Pfizer, and Eli Lilly will build a new information platform about available clinical trials, with healthcare software to match one’s individual health profile to applicable trials.
Non-profit DataKind is partnering with Pivotal to engage top data scientists to help non-profits use data analytics to solve some of “society’s greatest challenges.”
The Kamusi Project is engaging universities and “citizen linguists” to build a dictionary of “every word in every language.”
BigData@CSAIL/MIT and the city of Boston will tackle urban transportation “head-on” with a big data challenge.
Our Health Data Cooperative (ODHC) will offer a database for patients to better manage and use their health data while providing it anonymously for clinical research.
And New York City is analyzing its performance data to help new businesses launch faster and improve day-to-day operations and readiness for disasters.
As presenter Yann LeCun, Director of the Center for Data Science at New York University pointed out, “much of the knowledge in the world will soon need to be extracted by machines, because there will not be enough brain power to do it.”
... Machines to Data to Machines to Knowledge to Action …
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