DigiMed Bayern Symposium 2024

6 November 2024

TranslaTUM, Munich

The DigiMed Bayern partners presented the progress of the diverse projects in translational and data-driven research on cardiovascular diseases. In addition, renowned external experts in the field provided insights and input. This event was a great platform to learn, network and discuss with exciting speakers and participants about advances in data-driven medicine and its potentials for patients, science, the health system, the economy and for the society as a whole.

In 2023, the focus of the Symposium was on “big” and high-dimensional health data in clinical research with impact on healthcare. We had a special eye on the required collaborative and future-proof IT-infrastructure.

We look forward to welcoming you at our DigiMed Bayern Symposium 2024!

The DigiMed Bayern Symposium is the public annual conference of the flagship program "DigiMed Bayern - for the medicine of the future". The program focuses on data-based personalized medicine, exemplified by the endemic disease atherosclerosis. Top-class research partners from science, hospitals and informatics are working together in this consortium,  all aiming at preventing heart attacks and strokes.

Munich, December 6, 2023 - On December 5, the DigiMed Bayern Symposium took place at the TranslaTUM of the Technical University of Munich. Under the headline "Big Data - Big Outcome?", high-profile presentations and discussions demonstrated that the intensive use of health data can make an essential contribution to research and development in medicine and the further development of the healthcare system. The "DigiMed Bayern Secure Cloud" for health data was officially launched in the presence of an expert audience from science, business and politics. It is the jointly developed pilot infrastructure at the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities.

The DigiMed Bayern flagship P4 medicine project (www.digimed-bayern.de), the symposium and the DigiMed Bayern Secure Cloud offer valuable and tangible approaches for actively shaping the upcoming European Health Data Space (EHDS), for which the EU legislative process is currently underway. With the EHDS, the EU Commission wants to enable better use of health data for medical care, research and innovation as well as for health policy decisions and support individuals in taking control of their own health data. In recent years, Germany has worked its way into the European midfield in terms of digitalization in the healthcare sector. Above all, the EHDS offers great opportunities for Germany, although risks must also be highlighted. Germany should therefore take a leading position.

DigiMed Bayern focuses on advancing Germany in the responsible use of health data in scientific, medical and technical aspects. The focus is on how the widespread disease atherosclerosis and its serious consequences, heart attacks and strokes, can be prevented. To achieve this, it is initially necessary to integrate a large amount of high-quality health data. A team of experts from various disciplines analyzes this data to identify patterns that may be important in the development or progression of the disease.

Publicly funded institutions such as universities, hospitals and research institutes generate large and important volumes of data. However, important secure and cost-efficient cloud infrastructures are lacking for the use of this data. The DigiMed Bayern Secure Cloud, which was launched at the DigiMed Bayern Symposium, will not only serve DigiMed Bayern scientists from ten research institutes as a research pilot project, but will also provide and develop expertise in the field of secure cloud infrastructures "Made in Germany". This is a prerequisite for shaping the EHDS in a leading way and using it early on for the common good.

Prof. Dr. Heribert Schunkert, Scientific Director of DigiMed Bayern and Director of the Clinic for Cardiovascular Diseases at the German Heart Centre Munich, says: "In order to be able to treat diseases in a targeted manner, we need to understand the correlations in their emergence. This requires data. Integrating and analyzing this data can therefore save lives. At DigiMed Bayern, we have already achieved a lot for and with patients, for example with the Vroni study, the calculator for the risk of heart disease and the HerzFit app. Integrated data helps to map the development of disease at a molecular level. However, the spectrum of analyses extends to the macroscopic level, where the aim is to achieve improvements in the healthcare system. The availability and analysis of large and in-depth data sets from many patients will thus be able to contribute to better health at lower costs in the future. In our work, we have found that the vast majority of patients understand and support these connections."

Dr. Jens Wiehler, Managing Director of DigiMed Bayern and Digital Health Lead at Bio^M Biotech Cluster Development GmbH, adds: "The availability of health data and the ability to process it securely, efficiently and scalable with interdisciplinary teams of experts are a bottleneck for medical research and development. In addition to the medical-scientific successes, DigiMed Bayern is also helping to eliminate the bottleneck by developing a secure cloud environment in a public data centre. Ultimately, however, this challenge will only be solved through close cooperation with industry. This will help to improve our healthcare system and will also benefit Germany as a research and business location."

Press Relase in German

Press Release in English

Download press photo

• Session Welcome
• Session A
• Session B
• Session C

• DigiMed Bayern - applications for patient-oriented digital medicine, German Heart Centre Munich, Scientific Management DigiMed Bayern
• Artificial intelligence in hematological diagnostics: Game changer or gadget? Prof. Dr. Torsten Haferlach - Chief Executive Officer, Münchner Leukämie Labor MLL
• The real world? Health insurance data to guide personalisation in cardiovascular diesease, Dr. Moritz von Scheidt - Cardiologist and Internist, German Heart Centre Munich, Deputy Scientific Management DigiMed Bayern
• Prevention of Pandemic-associated Pathology Munich, Prof. Dr. Andreas Pichlmair - Institute of Virology, Technical University of Munich
• Mechanistic redefinition of disease using Big Data and network medicine and its translational application in drug repurposing and companion diagnostics, Prof. Dr. Harald Schmidt - Head of Department of Pharmacology & Personalised Medicine, Faculty of Health, Medicine & Life Science, Maastricht University
• Proteomics for Precision Healthcare: Illuminating Cardiovascular Disease, Sophia Steigerwald - PhD student, Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry

• Relevance and challenges of using imaging data in cancer care (BZKF BORN project), Prof. Dr. Marcus Makowski - BZKF BORN project / Director Institute for Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology,  Klinikum rechts der Isar, Technical University of Munich

• Global Perspectives in Establishing Secure Environments, BC Platforms

• Shared Services for Science – Example GWDG as a joint venture by MPG and University Göttingen, Prof. Dr. Ing. Ramin Yahyapour - Managing Director, GWDG GmbH

• The anDREa Cloud of the Netherlands, Ing. Stefan van Aalst, MSc - Chief Technology Officer, anDREa BV   

• deNBI Cloud - German Network for Bioinformatics Infrastructure, Dr. Jens Krüger - Group Leader High Performance and Cloud Computing, University Tübingen, de.NBI Cloud location   

• The social contract and trust in large-scale genomics initiatives - Comparative perspectives, PD Dr. Ruth Horn, Associate Professor in Ethics at the University of Oxford and Deputy Director Institute for Ethics and History of Health in Society, University of Augsburg   

• The DigiMed Bayern Cloud at the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre, Florent Dufour - PhD Student &  Research Associate, LRZ &TUM AI in Medicine, Dr. Naweiluo Zhou - Research Associate, LRZ

Background information:

The Bavarian flagship program DigiMed Bayern aims at incorporating the holistic concept of P4 medicine (predictive, preventive, personalized, participatory) into medical practice to improve effectiveness and efficiency of healthcare. To achieve health improvements, world-leading university hospitals collaborate closely with research institutes in the fields of epidemiology, biology, biochemistry, omics technologies and data sciences. Beyond the clinical and scientific focus, data protection and legal questions, medical ethics and sociological topics are complementary and fundamental to the project. An ambitious and visionary goal is the creation of a compliant and secure cloud IT-infrastructure to support collaborative health-related research and development. The greater vision is to trigger real-life improvements in personalized disease identification and risk prediction, prevention, management, and treatment for patients and individuals at risk. With that, DigiMed Bayern contributes knowhow, blueprints and infrastructure also to other institutions and disease areas.

Anja Kroke
Project Management DigiMed Bayern
kroke@remove-this.bio-m.org
+49 89 899 679-14