European @neurIST Project Tackles Cerebral Aneurysms

A European Union (EU)-funded research project is trying to develop an information technology (IT) solution to help in the risk assessment process.

The @neurIST project (Barcelona, Spain) aims to provide an integrated decision support system that is based on the genetic, radiological, and clinical data from an individual patient and on outcome data and treatment results from a vast anonymous library of previously treated patients. By simulating the blood flow with the help of three-dimensional (3D) reconstructions of the cerebral arteries, the system will help clinicians to make decisions and select the appropriate treatment. It will also be of use for research purposes, by helping them find evidence of links between genomics and cerebral aneurysms. To reach these goals, a complete IT infrastructure is being developed for the management and processing of heterogeneous data, acquired both during the diagnostic process and from epidemiological studies.

The @neurIST system is based on service-oriented architecture that is consistent with the future incorporation of commercial services, with data privacy and access control as central components of the system. The prototype infrastructure uses web services standards, and where appropriate, grid standards with broad acceptance are used to exploit international grid networks, bringing together technical resources and knowledge from different clinical and scientific institutions. The open and standardized @neurIST architecture can easily be used to develop applications based on the architecture principles. For example, the @neuFuse application suite handles complex biomechanical analysis from medical images that are also adaptable to other parts of the anatomy, whilst the @neuEndo application explores likely intervention possibilities and helps device designers.

"Combining genomic databases, research literature and clinical patient data should certainly be a killer application for grid technology,” said Martin Hofmann-Apitius, Ph.D, of the Fraunhofer Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing (SCAI; Sankt Augustin, Germany), one of the lead information scientists in @neurIST.

The 4-year project started in January 2006 with a EUR 17 million budget, and is a consortium of 28 public and private institutions from 12 European countries, as well as several organizations from outside Europe involved as external collaborators.

Related Links:
The @neurIST project
Fraunhofer Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing