New Frontiers in Digital Technologies for Influenza: Big Data and Mobile-Phone Connected Diagnostic Tests

UCL Contact: Steve Marchant (Visitors from outside UCL please email in advance).
Date/Time: 26 Jun 14, 08:30 - 18:15
Venue: Council Room, The Institute of Materials, 1 Carlton House Te
Further Information: See also https://www.ucl.ac.uk/infection-sense/upcomingevents

Abstract

Pandemic influenza is rated as one of the top threats to global health on the UK Government National Risk Register. Early detection and vigilant monitoring of serious flu epidemics is crucial to controlling outbreaks and supporting effective follow-up care and researchers across the globe have turned to innovative digital technologies to address this global challenge. A successful early warning system using big data and mobile-phone connected tests could predict a pandemic even before people attend clinics or in parts of the world that lack the resources for traditional public health surveillance.

This event will bring together leading experts in the field of big data and mobile diagnostics to discuss the latest technologies to track and test influenza. This includes recent developments in mobile connected tests such as microfluidic chips, advanced nano materials and optics and surface-acoustic wave devices and the use of online sources (e.g. Google search engine queries, Twitter) to identify disease outbreaks much earlier than current healthcare systems.

Speakers include representatives from Google, Telefonica, OJ Bio, Harvard Medical School, UCLA, Columbia University, University College London, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Public Health England and Imperial College London.

Panel discussions and a networking reception will give you an invaluable opportunity to engage with these academic and industry experts. You will have the chance to discuss how these digital components could come together into an early warning system and the technical and clinical challenges that are still to be addressed.

There will also be opportunities to present your own research via an abstract submission for oral and poster presentations.

This event is jointed hosted by the EPSRC IRC in Early Warning Sensing Systems in Infectious Diseases (i-sense) and the Infectious Disease Research Network.