VODAN-Africa researchers design a FAIR digital data health infrastructure that is helping in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic

The African-European Tuberculosis Consortium (AE-TBC) is an international multisite group of African and European researchers who investigate the use of host biosignatures for the diagnosis of active TB disease. For over ten years, the LUMC groups of Infectious Diseases and Cell & Chemical Biology from Prof Annemieke Geluk and Dr Paul Corstjens respectively, have been partners of the EDCTP consortia for tuberculosis (among which AE-TBC). The AE-TBC recently won the prize for ‘Outstanding Research Team 2020, awarded by the EDCTP.

LUMC and LUMC Global was represented at the 2023 Conference of the American Medical Informatics Association which opened on 12 November. Prof. Mirjam van Reisen, Prof FAIR Data Science and Erik Schultes, presented at the scientific panel on “The CEDAR Workbench: Semantic Technology to Ensure FAIR Data” alongside Mark A. Musen, M.D. from the Center for Biomedical Informatics Research, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford; Anthony L. Juehne, from the Office of the Director, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda; and  Rachel L. Richesson, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor.

The presentations focused on the LUMC-research on the curation of medical data to ensure data is Findable, Accessible (under well-defined conditions), Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR) and Federated AI Ready.

The Janssen-Cilag International N.V COVID-19 vaccine has received authorization for emergency use by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) on March 11. Developed with fundamental support from the Molecular Virology group of the Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC), it is the fourth vaccine to be administered in the European Union. The Netherlands has ordered more than 11 million vaccine doses.