Indian government, university to work on tech-enabled medical datasets

It seeks to help make medical data available to a broader community.

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has expressed plans to collaborate with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) on a national initiative towards the creation of medical datasets representing India’s diversity, the university said in a press release.

In a memorandum of understanding, ICMR and IISc plan to develop a technology-enabled hubs-and-spokes system for collecting and curating data through institutions across the country, the university said.

AI & Robotics Technology Park (ARTPARK), a not-for-profit foundation promoted by IISc, will serve as the initiative’s partner for technology development and programme management.

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By leveraging premier medical institutions as hubs and bringing together experts from both medicine and data science, the team driving this initiative seeks to help standardise data collection from many “spoke” institutions.

It will also help curate that data and aim to make them available, in accordance with applicable policies and laws, to the broader community of researchers and innovators, IISc said.