The LCSB is participating partner of “Information Technology Future of Medicine” (ITFoM) – a project that brings together world leading research groups from across Europe and beyond – to propose a medicine based on computer models (‘virtual patients’) derived from molecular, physiological, anatomical and environmental data generated on every individual patient. These ‘virtual patients’ will then be used to identify individually optimised prevention or therapy schedules, minimising potential side effects of treatment regimes. 

ITFoM is one of six Pilot Actions to prepare “European Future Technologies” (FET) Flagships. The FET initiative was launched by Neelie Kroes, European Commissioner for the European Digital Agenda. FET Flagships are large-scale, science-driven and mission oriented initiatives that aim to achieve visionary technological goals. The scale of ambition will be over 10 years of coordinated effort, with a budget of up to one billion Euros for each of two Flagships. To prepare the launch of the FET Flagships, six Pilot Actions will be funded with 1.5 million Euros each for a 12-month period; in the second half of 2012, two of the Pilots will be selected and launched as full FET Flagship Initiatives in 2013.

In the past, innovation in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and computing has been primarily driven by the requirements of “large” physics and a broad spectrum of commercial applications; medicine has played a relatively minor role. This, however, is set to change as in future clinical needs will be the driving force behind ICT innovation: Data-rich, individualised medicine poses unprecedented challenges for ICT - in terms of hardware, storage and communication. Making personalised medicine a reality will thus require fundamental advances in the computational sciences. 

ITFoM “aims to revolutionise health care systems”, as Hans Lehrach, project coordinator and Director at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics and The Dahlem Centre for Genome Research and Medical Systems Biology in Berlin, Germany, says. “The LCSB fits perfectly into this strategy”, says Rudi Balling, director of the LCSB. The institute employs various high throughput technologies to analyse genomes, proteins and metabolic products in large scale  - with the result that tremendous amounts of data are generated. Balling: „In the next years the crucial question is how to merge and combine the high throughput methods in systems biomedicine with the immense requirements for computer hard- and software. I see a real chance of achieving great advances in this field at the LCSB. We will benefit from ITFoM and bring our know-how into the project.”