Berlin Science Week
1—10 Nov 2024 Berlin Science Week

The Future of Digital Health | Tohoku University

Ryoichi Nagatomi, Giampaolo Pileggi, Iwao Waga, Sylvia Thun

What needs to be done?

Rapidly evolving digital technology and data science have started to transform our lifestyles. In the context of our health, they have been partially successful in promoting our biological health, so that we might live on to beyond 100 years old. Advanced technologies have enabled us to predict disease onsets early, meaning that there is room to take action and modify lifestyles to postpone or escape from diseases on an individual basis. But are we happy with what we have achieved already?

Definitely not! We would like to have the technologies as unobtrusive as possible, and to have them not interrupting our lives. We would like to have digital health technologies to support our lives, thus staying not only clinically healthy but also vital and actively participating in society.

In this seminar future perspectives of how digital technology can improve our lives were discussed. The event was part of Berlin Science 2021 and organised by the Tohoku University.

Ryoichi Nagatomi

TOHOKU UNIVERSITY

Prof. Ryoichi Nagatomi, vice president of the Japanese Society of Physical Fitness and Sports Medicine, a Fellow of European College of Sports Science (ECSS), the past president of International Society of Exercise and Immunology (ISEI) and a board member of Exercise is Medicine Japan, has been making significant contributions to health and sports science, using a multidisciplinary approach covering molecular and cellular biology, immunology, cardiovascular physiology, biomechanics, epidemiology and sensor technology. He is the co-research leader of Tohoku University’s Center of Innovation Project for creation of a society with self- and mutual assistance through daily unobtrusive sensing and health monitoring, a co-creation project of academia and industries.

Giampaolo Pileggi

NEC Laboratories Europe GmbH

Dr. Giampaolo Pileggi has been a Research Scientist at NEC Laboratories Europe GmbH (NLE) since May 2018. He obtained his PhD in 2018 working on AI models for the generation of synthetic Computed Tomographies from Magnetic Resonance Images. His current main field of study consists of developing AI-based algorithms for patient stratification using genomics data.

Iwao Waga

TOHOKU UNIVERSITY CENTER OF INNOVATION

Dr. Iwao Waga is CTO of FonesLife, Senior Fellow of NEC Solution Innovator, Visiting Professor at Tohoku University’s School of Medicine, Project Leader of Tohoku University’s Center of Innovation Project, and R&D Supervisor (Program Officer JST-Mirai program) at the Japan Science and Technology Agency. He has been engaged in research and business development of NEC’s healthcare, biotechnology, and artificial intelligence projects, after a successful IPO and business development at a US startup. With his research at North Carolina University and University of Tokyo’s School of Medicine he made contributions to DNA design, omics big data analysis, plant biology, molecular biology, and biochemistry. He won the Design Award and teaches at the Department of Design, Tokyo University of the Arts.

Sylvia Thun

Berliner Institut für Gesundheitsforschung

Prof. Sylvia Thun, a licensed physician and graduate engineer, is a professor at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, where she heads the Core Facility Digital Medicine and Interoperability at the Berlin Institute of Health (BIH). In 2014, she received the „Digital Head“ award from the BMBF and the German Informatics Society. In 2020, she obtained the additional designation ‚Medical Informatics‘ from the Nordrhein Medical Association. She is also a certificate holder of the medical society GMDS for medical informatics. Sylvia Thun is the chairwoman of the „Spitzenverband IT-Standards im Gesundheitswesen“ (SITiG) and chairwoman of HL7 Germany, she is deputy chairwoman DIN Technical Committee Medical Informatics and delegate to ISO TC 215 Medical Informatics and CEN TC 215.