D-BSSE is leading house of European network for machine learning in medicine

Professor Karsten Borgwardt will be the coordinator of a Marie Curie Innovative Training Network called “Machine Learning Frontiers in Precision Medicine” which the European Commission funds with 3.6 Mio € for four years (2019-2022). More than 16 institutions take part in this network including universities and small and large enterprises. In total, 14 doctoral students will receive funding, of which one student will conduct his/her research at D-BSSE.

Healthcare is entering the digital era: More and more patient data, from the molecular level of genome sequences to the level of image phenotypes and health history, are available in digital form. Exploring this big health data promises to reveal new insights into disease mechanisms and therapy outcomes. Ultimately, the goal is to exploit these insights for precision medicine, which hopes to offer personalized preventive care and therapy selection for each patient.


A technology with transformational potential in analysing this health data is machine learning. Machine learning strives to discover new knowledge in form of statistical dependencies in large datasets. Mining health data is, however, not a simple direct application of established machine learning techniques. On the contrary, the emerging population-scale and ultra-high dimensionality of health data creates the need to develop machine learning algorithms that can successfully operate at this scale. Overcoming these frontiers in machine learning is key to making the vision of precision medicine a reality.


To meet this challenge, Europe urgently needs a new generation of scientists with knowledge in both machine learning and in health data analysis, who are extremely rare at a global scale. The goal of the Marie Curie Innovative Training Network entitled "Machine Learning Frontiers in Precision Medicine" is to close this gap, by bringing together leading European research institutes in machine learning and statistical genetics, both from the private and public sector, to train 14 early stage researchers. These scientists will help to shape the future of this important topic and increase Europe's competitiveness in this domain, which will have severe academic and industrial impact in the future and has the potential to shape the healthcare and high tech sector in Europe in the 21st century.

Professor Borgwardt from the Machine Learning and Computational Biology Lab  is coordinating the external pageMarie Curie Innovative Traning Network "Machine Learning Frontiers in Precision Medicine".

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