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| Hinxton,
Monday 12 September 2005 |
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| European Commission funds EBI to do new research on synergies
between bioinformatics and medical informatics |
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Press
Release 12 September 2005 [PDF]
The European
Commission has selected the EBI to coordinate a project
that will stimulate and explore synergies between
bioinformatics [the science of storing, retrieving and
analysing large amounts of biological information] and
medical informatics [the science of processing, sharing
and using large amounts of medical information]. The
SYMBiomatics project will culminate in a White Paper that
will inform the Commission's funding policy on the synergy
between these two rapidly growing areas. The aim is to
facilitate and accelerate biomedical research and
innovation, with the ultimate goal of improving Europe's
efficiency at developing better tools and systems for
disease prevention, diagnosis and treatment.
Building on decades of advances in deciphering the
molecular components of living things, molecular and
computational biologists are now synthesising the
information that they've gathered, and are building a
detailed understanding of cells, tissues, organs,
organisms and populations. At the same time, clinical
research has led to a better appreciation of the molecular
basis of disease. Clinical scientists are amassing
information that is helping them to decipher how variations
in people's genetic make-up can affect their likelihood of
developing certain diseases such as cardiovascular
disease or diabetes, or of developing an adverse
response to particular drugs, such as the anti-coagulants
used to treat some types of heart disease.
"The emerging discipline of biomedical informatics sits at
the interface of the previously disparate worlds of
bioinformatics and medical informatics," says Graham
Cameron, the EBI's Associate Director and coordinator of
the SYMBiomatics project. "The development of
technologies that will allow scientific and clinical
information to be shared and integrated more readily will
expedite the creation of novel diagnostic, preventive and
therapeutic methods, allowing people to lead longer,
healthier lives."
"It's critical that the two fields of bioinformatics and
medical informatics work together cooperatively to solve
many common and complex problems," says Gérard
Comyn, Acting Director of the General Directorate
Information Society and Media of the European
Commission. "We predict that in the very near future these
two previously separate disciplines will share vast
amounts of information that will result in a massive
improvement of the quality of life for European citizens."
Working together over the next fifteen months, an
executive committee comprising nine organisations from
six different European Member States [UK, France, Italy,
Spain, Greece and the Netherlands] will document the
state of the art in biomedical informatics. The group will
identify areas of maximum opportunity, by systematically
collecting insights from experts in the field and by
analysing the scientific literature. Areas of opportunity will
then be documented and prioritised. The group's findings
will be presented at a meeting in early summer 2006,
enabling further discussion by the wider community of
bioinformaticians, medical informaticians, the growing
number of clinical professionals whose work spans these
domains and European policy makers. The project will
culminate in a report that will summarise the project's
findings and will provide input to future European scientific
and funding policy.
"Because there are many potential synergies between
bioinformatics and medical informatics, it's important to
document and prioritise them so that we can identify the
fastest route towards a healthier Europe," explains Ilias
Iakovidis, Deputy Head of the European Commission's
ICT for Health Unit.
The members of the SYMBIOmatics Executive Committee are:
Francesco Beltrame, University of Genoa [Italy]
Graham Cameron, EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute [UK]
Dominic Clark, Scientific Generics Ltd [UK]
Jean-Louis Coatrieux, INSERM [France]
Eva Del Hoyo Barbolla, Ministry of Education and Science [Spain]
Fernando Martin-Sanchez, Institute of Health 'Carlos
III' [Spain]
Luciano Milanesi, Institute of Biomedical Technologies [Italy]
Manolis Tsiknakis, Foundation for Research and Technology [Greece]
Johan Van der Lei, Erasmus Medical Center [Netherlands]
Ipsos [UK] will support the Executive committee
in the management and administration of the survey
Press Contacts
Cath Brooksbank PhD
EMBL-EBI Scientific Outreach Officer Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK
Tel: +44 [0]1223 492525
E-mail: cath@ebi.ac.uk
Sarah Sherwood
EMBL Information Officer, European Molecular Biology Laboratory,
Meyerhofstrasse 1, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany
Tel: +49 [0] 6221 387125
E-mail: sarah.sherwood@embl.de |
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