We recently participated in a webcast with PwC and Microsoft uses the OSIC Data Repository as an example to discuss how digital and cloud technologies are forging in a new path to manage rare diseases.
In recent years, significant technology innovations have shaped the future of diagnostic imaging. AI as a supplemental lens for medical image analysis is on the rise, and its use has contributed to rapid developments in many disease states regarding imaging-based diagnosis, prognosis, and prediction of response to therapy.
But for AI to “do its job,” there must be enough data. And up until now, a significant obstacle in harnessing this technology to study pulmonary fibrosis has been the lack of large, diverse imaging repositories needed to drive machine learning research. “Machine learning is the rocket, but the fuel is the data. Without that, we’re going nowhere,” said Dr. Simon Walsh, National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London, and OSIC radiology lead.
The OSIC Data Repository is changing all of that.
This year, World Lung Day is on Saturday, September 25. Established by The Forum of International Respiratory Societies (FIRS), this annual lung health awareness day is an opportunity for the global community to promote better lung health, advocacy, and action. It’s also a chance for organizations from around the globe to discuss how they can better work together to rid the world of all lung disease.
What happens when you bring together teams of global experts to examine the world’s largest and most diverse data base for rare fibrotic lung diseases?
What is possible when the best and brightest radiologists, pulmonologists, machine learners, and imagine experts from industry and academia pool their collective brain power?
What useful metrics can members of this unique collaborative derive when they kick the tires of the first-of-its-kind global data repository for interstitial lung diseases?
What can they discover, together? We can’t to find out!
Collaboration and access to data help drive medical innovation. “The future of medical research depends heavily on our ability to collate significant amounts of data, and make that data available for detailed and open scientific investigation,” said Dr. David Barber, University College London and OSIC computation science lead. “It’s a proud moment that OSIC is at the forefront of this movement.”
OSIC was created to look at lung diseases differently and to drive collaboration between unlikely partners. We found the best and brightest from around the globe, and asked them to pool their brain power. We gathered radiologists, clinicians, computational scientists, and industry competitors to help us progress in ways we hadn’t yet considered. They collaborated for almost three years, and the outcome — the OSIC Data Repository — is extraordinary.
Launching the OSIC Data Repository has been a collaboration in its truest sense. By bringing together the world’s “best in class,” we’ve been able to build something truly remarkable — the largest and most diverse global database for are fibrotic lung diseases. All open source. All for the benefit of patients.
We spoke with OSIC Board Member Eric S. White, MD, MS, senior clinical program lead, ILD, at Boehinger Ingelheim, and asked him what accomplishment within OSIC he is most proud of so far.
