WIKIMEDIA, ANDRE ENGELSThough it affects one out of every nine babies born in the United States, scientists know surprisingly little about what causes preterm birth. To address the issue, two organizations are hedging their bets on big data and genomics, partnering to develop computer models that can predict the risk that a woman’s child will be born before reaching 37 weeks of gestation.
The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based big data firm GNS Healthcare is collaborating with the Inova Translational Medicine Institute (ITMI) at Inova Fairfax Hospital to mine next-generation sequencing data and electronic medical records gathered by Inova using GNS’s analytics platform, with the goal of commercializing preterm birth predictive models and corresponding software.
“The causes of preterm birth are complex and in about half of cases, are unknown,” the GNS and Inova noted in their announcement. “While there is understood to be a genetic component, no individual genes have been identified as causative to date.”
Researchers at the ITMI are currently following a cohort of 285 premature babies as part of a larger preterm birth study involving 826 families. “Partnering with our colleagues at GNS provides the best opportunity ...
