Using Big, Personalized Data to Understand Disease

The “big data” revolution is here. More data has been generated in the last two years than in the history of humanity. It’s being used to predict what toothpaste we buy, what car we drive and what friends we want to have. But what does this mean for our health? In this talk, Emma Graham explores the ways in which big data is revolutionizing how we diagnose and treat disease, focusing especially on how large, biological datasets are being used to study complex diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, and rare diseases, such as childhood metabolic disorders. Along the way, she’ll touch on some of the ethical issues raised by the concept of personalized medicine, and describe steps the health care system is taking to address them.