Antibody against carcinogenic substance deciphered

Research news - The aim of the DIFUTURE (Data Integration for Future Medicine) project is to collate and analyze digital patient data with a view to improving our understanding of diseases and allowing doctors to reach the individual right decisions faster. Under the leadership of the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and in cooperation with the Ludwig Maximilian University Munich (LMU), Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen and the University of Augsburg the major project can start with millions of euros in funding from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) as part of the Medical Informatics Initiative. Together with further partners from science and industry, the DIFUTURE Consortium will harmonize, integrate and analyze a wide variety of data from healthcare and research. The aim is to utilize data from routine clinical practice for research purposes and to improve our understanding of the causes and progression of diseases. Collating records from research - for example from genetic or tissue databases - and from clinical practice will shed new light on relationships, for example, between individual genes, lifestyles, and diseases or complications. Such large data sets ('Big Data') will create opportunities for the early detection of rare complications, risks and adverse drug effects as well as for improving diagnoses, treatment decisions and preventive care. This knowledge will help to prevent diseases more effectively, diagnose them more quickly and treat them more specifically and with fewer side effects.