The Canadian Distributed Infrastructure for Genomics (CanDIG), recently featured in a special issue of Cell Genomics dedicated to data exchange, is Canada’s solution for enabling nationwide data exchange (and connecting data to data sets from all the world).
Precision medicine requires large volumes of data. To improve the treatment of people with cancer or to understand rare diseases, scientists and physicians, as well as artificial intelligence technologies, require access to broader sets of health research data that cover diverse populations and a broad range of conditions .
Artificial Intelligence + Big Data
For AI, more data means a better understanding of diseases, leading to more accurate diagnosis and treatment. At the same time, each hospital will only see a relatively small number of people with a disease, and even across the province, we have access to only a small part of the total data available around the world .
To build the large-scale data sets needed to power precision medicine, sharing data across the country and around the world is critical .
CanDIG is a driving force behind the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH), an international effort that sets standards for genomics and health data that seek to improve interoperability in the genomics landscape around the world.