Lessons learned and inspriration gained during the HARMONY Alliance Bootcamp in Bologna

#bigdataforbloodcancer, Big Data Platform, Data science

The HARMONY Alliance organized a bootcamp for early-career hematologists on 26 and 27 March 2024 in Bologna, Italy, in close collaboration with the European Hematology Association, the University of Bologna, IBSAL and INFN/CNAF.

We welcomed ambitious early-career hematologists, active in research and aware of the fact that data-innovations are a substantial part of their work now and in the future. 23 young professionals working at HARMONY Alliance Partner organizations were selected to participate after submitting a motivation letter and CV. Seasoned senior hematologists and expert data scientists joined our group to present and to mentor. The HARMONY data science team provided training sessions.

Organizing educational and practical meet ups addresses our ambition to grow our community, and more hematologists will experience the benefit working with data analytic tools and being part of research collaborations. The better they are ‘equipped’ the better they can explain their ideas and requirements to data science teams in (future) research projects.

The bootcamp learning objectives were:

Gain deep understanding of the HARMONY mission, the data lake and the Big Data Platform;
Understand advanced techniques in statistical modelling, Machine Learning, Neural Networks and Deep Learning to the data; as well as data harmonization and the OMOP data model.
Learn how to make use of the HARMONY Big Data Platform dashboards, how to perform basic statistical analyses and visualization in large-scale datasets and how to interpret these analysis results and make meaningful observations for instance in disease progressing, identification of new markers and performance of risk stratification.

The 2 day program consisted of plenary lectures fueling the collective pursuit to leverage the power of Big Data in hematology. Parallel training sessions focussed on practical analysis cases, exploration, visualization tools, analytics dashboards, simulation of patient risk, and machine learning outcomes. Throughout the program guided and open interactions were encouraged. Walks through the centre of Bologna and enjoying the Italian food in cosy restaurants completed the success of this intensive event.

Lecturers/mentors and their topics:

Gastone Castellani - University of Bologna (co-host), presenting about data and what early career hematologists need to know about synthetic data generation, imaging data and electronic health records.
Andrea Chierci and Maria Cristina Vistoli  (co-host) - INFN | CNAF, presenting about the technology of the HARMONY Big Data Platform, including security measures and about  other large-scale Big Data Projects in the medical field.
Valeria Santini – University of Florence, addressing how to create collaboration networks and start research projects in hematology.
Mateo della Porta - Humanitas Cancer Center, addressing how big data and AI can lead to novel strategies in addressing undiagnosed rare diseases.
Amin Turki – University of Essen, presenting about Artificial Intelligence (AI) in clinical research, existing and upcoming research applications for diagnosis and decision support and ethics in medicine.
Eric Fey – University of Helsinki , presenting about about building predictive models for precision medicine at scale, explaining precision (systems) medicine, models, RWD, trial/research data and OMOP.
Eric Straeng – Charite, presenting about the HARMONY Big Data - from the source to the platform and about data sources, aggregation and harmonization.
Alberto Hernández – IBSAL/University of Salamanca, providing a practical example of a HARMONY Research Project from start to finish (The AML story)
Ellen de Waal (host) and Francesco Cerisoli – European Hematology Association, sharing background info and a future outlook about the HARMONY Alliance and presenting the arena of fostering science and spreading knowledge in basic, translational, and clinical research in hematology in Europe; Specialized Working Groups, grants and career development.

Big Data Platform trainers:

Team IBSAL/University of Salamanca: Javier Martinez, Angela Villaverde, Helena Fidalgo Gómez
Team University of Bologna: Enrico Giampieri, Daniele dal’Olio, Luciana Carota

Our data science teams provided a deep and practical dive into working with the HARMONY Big Data Platform, its integrated services and the HARMONY Data Dashboards. Through training and assignments bootcampers gained knowledge about the HARMONY data and were thought how to understand the process of extracting valuable insights.

Are you interested to attend future bootcamps or big data platform training events? Send an email to Ellen de Waal.

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