IU conference to highlight ‘big data’ on healthcare

IU will stage a conference on May 9 to look at big data’s expanding role in health care and its opportunities for life sciences companies as well as consumers, according to a press release Monday.

The conference will take place 8 a.m. to 3:15 p.m. at the Indiana Government Center South in Indianapolis, according to the release.

There is a registration fee of $150, but students at accredited Indiana colleges may be applicable for a discounted rate.

Dr. Atul Butte is the division chief and associate professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

He will give the keynote presentation titled, “Translating a Trillion Points of Data Into Therapies, Diagnostics and New Insights Into Disease,” according to the release.

Butte founded Personalis, which provides clinical interpretation of entire genome sequences, and Carmenta Bioscience, which focuses on researching diagnostics for pregnancy complications.

He also founded NuMedii to look for new uses of drugs through open molecular data, according to the release.

“Several billion dollars” and 13 years later, the first human genome was mapped.

Now, big data can be used to map a person’s genome in just days with a price tag of a few thousand dollars, according to the release.

Investments in electronic medical records have resulted in fewer doctor’s visits and significant savings for both consumers and their insurance companies, according to the release.

George Telthorst is the director of the Center for the Business of Life Sciences in the Kelley School of Business.

“The use of business analytics is revealing a wide range of insights across a variety of industries,” Telthorst said.

The same technology that utilizes big data, which allows companies like Netflix and Amazon make suggestions to their customers. It can also be used by doctors to keep track of patient health and offer options for preventive care, according to the release.

“While this crunching of big data has been helpful to pharmaceutical and medical device companies, it must be balanced by privacy requirements, thus creating other questions about how easy it will be to glean useful information,” Telthorst said in the
release.

Kathrine Schulze