23Strands and UTS team up to research into how genomics can benefit from artificial intelligence.
Innovative Australian healthcare technology company links with university’s AI Institute for research into personalised medicine.
Australian clinical genomics innovator 23Strands has partnered with the UTS Australian Artificial Intelligence Institute to gain a highly competitive Australian Research Council (ARC Linkage) Grant on applying Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the analysis, management and clinical recommendation flow to improve personal treatment of diseases.
The 23Strands and UTS partnership aims to accelerate how complex and cutting edge genome data can be better analysed and reported on, providing doctors with new supporting data to make vital health decisions.
It will be led by Professor Jie Liu from the Australian Artificial Intelligence Institute and brings together existing teams and supporting PhD researchers and Research Assistants.
Although the first draft of human genome was first published more than 20 years ago, medical science has still much to understand about the massive amount of data within it.
The human genome has been called the “textbook of medicine” but it’s still a book with many secrets.
Mark Grosser, CEO of 23Strands says: “The problem in genomics we have set out to solve is how to integrate this big data with other clinical information and complex analytics to provide better decision support for clinicians. We understand there is a lot to do and even the current leading global initiatives, such as the UK Biobank and NIH AllofUs are still grappling with how to best interpret and utilise this complex genomic data.”
The program is split into three main projects:
- Improving personalised understanding of disease and treatments using Fuzzy and complex AI based analysis of Whole Human Genome Sequencing data. These new methods for segmenting and classifying people into cohorts based on genomics will allow us to better understand how one patient may respond to their treatment compared with another who may respond completely differently. These advanced techniques for segmentation and targeted engagement have already across other industries, including by online advertisers and social media organisations.
- Intelligent Computer Aided Recommendations for clinicians integrating existing medical records with genomics. By integrating genomic data we can for the first time provide near real time feedback to doctors on the drugs that are being prescribed, as well as recommending targeted pathology testing, rather than the shotgun approach being used today.
- Healthcare Pathway optimisation of genome sequencing and data integration and disease trajectory analysis. Healthcare is one industry where getting the right diagnostics, treatments and management can save billions of wasted dollars. By providing patient journey management over time we expect to be able to offset the cost genomic diagnostics with a clear cost reduction due to the unnecessary and the late delivery of patient services. This leverages the team’s experience and technology platform that originally delivered significant improvement to injured workers and drivers through the Workers Compensation and CTP insurance schemes.
Professor Jie Liu of the Australian Artificial Intelligence Institute said: “The ARC Linkage program provides the ideal program to develop, test and validate new algorithms in genomics. We believe this project will take us to the forefront of new techniques in analysing this complex area of study.”
The project was awarded $698,782 from the ARC and co-investment of $798,000 from 23Strands and $714,070 from UTS.
Professor Jie Liu and Mark Grosser are
