Medical research needs big data – Tessa Jowell gets the ball rolling | Sonia Sodha

We think nothing of sharing personal information with tech giants so why are we so suspicious about our health records?Half of us born after 1960 will be told we havecancer at some point in our lives. Virtually no one will go through life untouched by the disease, whether as a sufferer, a survivor or supporter. So every year, millions of us lace up running shoes, bake cakes and cultivate moustaches in memory of loved ones to raise the cash needed for cancer research.But money is not the only critical ingredient in developing new cures. An important constraint on the pace of progress is the lack of large datasets that contain valuable information on how patients are responding to different types of treatment.Continue reading...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Medical research Tessa Jowell Cancer Cancer research Data protection Science Health Politics UK news Source Type: news