The Indian Council for Medical Research, India’s premier body for biomedical research, is undertaking a national initiative to produce high-quality medical datasets representing the diversity of the Indian population.
We have signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) to collaborate on this effort, and ARTPARK (AI & Robotics Technology Park), a non-profit organization promoted by IISc, will be our technology development partner. and program management.
According to a press statement, the team behind the initiative hopes to help standardize data collection from partner healthcare institutions and make those data available to the broader community of Indian researchers and innovators. Curate their data on purpose.
why it matters
In a statement, IISc said AI will improve healthcare access and increase staff productivity by building high-quality, curated medical image datasets that represent the diversity of people, environments and needs in India. can accelerate research and innovation to deliver on its promise.
Such data would also help evaluate AI-based tools and accelerate their deployment, he further said.
the bigger trend
Other population health initiatives in the Asia-Pacific region also aim to leverage population-level data to generate deeper insights into their respective health problems and the need to improve health outcomes.
For one thing, Singapore’s Precision Health Research, in collaboration with genomics technology company Illumina, is conducting large-scale population studies and building a comprehensive precision medicine database to generate insights into Asian genomic diversity and endemic diseases. increase. Another Singapore institution, the National Cancer Center Singapore, is involved in an effort to build a regional clinical genomics database to gain insights for improving outcomes for cancer patients.
on record
Welcoming the national initiative, Professor and Director of IISc Govindan Rangarajan said: Create valuable datasets to drive the next generation of innovation in India and globally. “
