Duke receives $9.75M for its big data initiative
Duke University has received $9.75 million in gifts and matching funds to support an initiative that focuses on harnessing massive amounts of information to tackle society’s biggest challenges, including healthcare.
Launched in 2013, the Information Initiative at Duke (iiD) brings together diverse faculty and graduate and undergraduate students to make sense of big data. One project included a collaboration with Duke Medicine to deploy personalized healthcare. Teams are also tackling the National Academy of Engineering’s Grand Challenges for Engineering, such as reverse-engineering the brain to uncover its vast, unrealized potential and to improve detection and treatment of brain-related diseases, according to information on Duke's website.
In one Bass Connections project, iiD faculty and students are working together to facilitate screening for autism and childhood mental disorders. By designing algorithms to automatically detect abnormal movements or behaviors captured on video, the team hopes to provide valuable tools to help clinicians detect symptoms and intervene earlier.
“If we can find patterns in the data that point to just a few simple tests or questions that truly indicate a problem, that would be a tremendous tool for clinicians,” said Guillermo Sapiro, a professor in engineering and computer science who co-leads the project with Duke child psychiatrist Helen Egger, MD. “It’s an exciting project because the contribution to society could be huge.”
Editor
Editor Beth earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and master’s in health communication. She has worked in hospital, academic and publishing settings over the past 20 years. Beth joined TriMed in 2005, as editor of CMIO and Clinical Innovation + Technology. When not covering all things related to health IT, she spends time with her husband and three children.