Submitted Abstract
In Luxembourg, systems biomedicine and personalized medicine have become a major research focus, with the LCSB as the key driver. LCSB has become an internationally highly visible and competitive research centre. The next envisaged step is to develop LCSB into a worldwide leading institute in biomedical research taking advantage of the latest progress in digital technologies. To reach this goal international benchmarking, knowledge exchange and developing long-term networking and collaborations with the best institutes in the world is essential. In my function as a Director of the LCSB I will try to strengthen and to further develop such collaborations. It is also important to personally stay at the forefront and state of the art in the field. This will help me to guide the conceptual development of the LCSB in the next years and to provide input and support for the implementation of the next key steps towards a new eHealth-strategy in Luxembourg.To support this important goal, I envisage to spend several months at The Scripps Research Institute and the Scripps Translational Science Institute (STSI) in La Jolla (California) as Professional Scientific Collaborator in the group of Eric Topol. TSRI and STSI are among the world leading institutes in several domains which will be important for LCSB and for the Luxembourg research and healthcare landscape. Their main mission is to innovate, transform and fully integrate clinical and translational research. The TSRI and STSI are also highly interested in a cooperation with LCSB as our research interests align very well and a close cooperation could be of major benefit for both institutions. A key objective of my planned research stay is to gain thorough knowledge about the latest developments and state of the art in precision and digital medicine and the application of artificial intelligence & machine learning in health research. I will establish contacts to the key scientists at TSRI/STSI and explore opportunities for future collaborations in these areas. The knowledge gained at TSRI/STSI will directly feed into the several strategic national projects in Luxembourg, where LCSB is involved in. It will contribute to design of the 2nd phase of NCER-PD, conceptual development of the “CLINNOVA” Medical Innovation Centre, setting up collaborations and searching international partners for ELIXIR, building up Medical Education and developing collaborations for the “CriTiCS” Doctoral Training Unit. During my research stay, I will also conduct a feasibility study for a first joint exploratory project focusing on use data from mobile health devices, smart sensor analytics and corresponding electronic clinical records in order to identify critical transitions that discriminate the healthy from the pre-disease state in type 2 diabetes and Parkinson’s disease.