Submitted Abstract
The International Systems Biomedicine Symposium, organized since 2011 every two years by the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine, aims at further positioning Luxembourg and its University as an international research hub.The “4th International Systems Biomedicine Symposium” took place from 4 to 5 October 2017 in the Maison du Savoir, at the University of Luxembourg. Three satellite events were also organized and linked to the Conference. The two-day conference addressed recent innovations in the field of Big Data Analytics in Health Research. The aim was to find solutions to implement Big Data in Health Care and to discuss important issues that need to be overcome. As in previous editions, the conference’s asset was its inclusive stakeholder approach: bringing together speakers and participants from academia, industry, clinicians, policy-makers and patient organizations allowing exchanges on new scientific findings and the entire life cycle of Big Data in Health Care. This inclusive stakeholder approach has proven to be efficient for the creation of new joint strategies and actions in research and policy-making. This constructive exchange between the different stakeholders is also the occasion to consolidate existing partnerships and to build new collaborations with international partners. Ample time was given for networking opportunities and exchange between the different stakeholders.The conference hosted leading organizations from academia, ICT, healthcare and government, including Google Research, Amazon, Microsoft, Syte Institute, Deloitte, Elixir, the European Commission, IBM – Research Zurich, and many more. Speakers discussed their current work, the opportunities for the future and where the field is headed. Together with financial and technical challenges, some of the speakers addressed policy challenges and the role of ethics in the Big Data in healthcare field.Furthermore, three satellite events gave speakers and participants the opportunity to deepen discussions on other topics related to Big Data in Healthcare and to have further networking opportunities. The Mini-Symposium on Disease Maps took place on 3 October. The objective of the satellite event was to present and discuss tools and applications that enable to manage the challenging task of data integration, analysis and visualization, thereby putting special emphasis on the use of contextualized molecular “Disease Maps”. An example is the Parkinson’s Disease map (PD map), which is a freely accessible knowledge depository describing the molecular mechanisms of PD as molecular networks. This particular project is one example of the expertise of the LCSB in the registration of data from research through the creation of high-tech ICT tools.A Horizon 2020 partnering event jointly organized with Luxinnovation was organized on 3 October as well. The event consisted of organizing pre-arranged face-to-face meetings between academia, R&D players and industry in the Big Data in healthcare field, especially in anticipation of the imminent launch of the new Horizon 2020 calls. The event aimed at increasing opportunities for targeted networking and to initiate contacts and projects with other R&D players.Finally, the Regional Student Group of Luxembourg, which is a student organization of the International Society for Computational Biology, organized its Annual National Congress on 6 October. This year’s edition was entitled “Big Data Analysis for Precision Medicine” and covered hot topics in data analysis as well as innovative healthcare solutions. The program included keynote speakers as well as workshops from early-stage researchers.