Parkinson’s disease

See the following -

Apple Introduces ResearchKit, Giving Medical Researchers the Tools to Revolutionize Medical Studies

Press Release | Apple | March 9, 2015

Apple® today announced ResearchKit™, an open source software framework designed for medical and health research, helping doctors and scientists gather data more frequently and more accurately from participants using iPhone® apps. World-class research institutions have already developed apps with ResearchKit for studies on asthma, breast cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and Parkinson’s disease.* Users decide if they want to participate in a study and how their data is shared. Read More »

Gut Microorganisms Affect Our Physiology

Press Release | University of Exeter | December 29, 2016

Scientists at the University of Exeter Medical School and University of Zaragoza in Spain studied a protein known as TLR2, a critical detector of the microbiota found in the intestine. They found that it regulates levels of serotonin – a neurotransmitter which carries messages to the brain, and is also found in the gut, where it regulates our bowel routines. The research, carried out in cell cultures and verified in mice, provides strong evidence that microbiota can interfere with human physiology by modulating the serotonin transporter activity...

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Oscars Of Science: Breakthrough Awards Hands Out $21m To Transform Physicists Into Rockstars

Tim Walker | The Independent | December 13, 2013

In Hollywood this week, the talk was all about the Golden Globe nominations, but several hundred miles to the north, Silicon Valley’s biggest names were enjoying a new kind of awards ceremony – and they invited one of the film industry’s favourite sons to host it. Read More »

Penn Medicine Launches First Apple ResearchKit App for Sarcoidosis Patients

Press Release | Penn Medicine | January 17, 2017

Penn Medicine today launched its first Apple ResearchKit app, focused on patients with sarcoidosis, an inflammatory condition that can affect the lungs, skin, eyes, heart, brain, and other organs. The effort marks Penn’s first time using modules from Apple’s ResearchKit framework, as part of the institution’s focus on mobile health and innovative research strategies. ResearchKit is an open source software framework designed specifically for medical research that helps doctors and scientists gather data more frequently and more accurately from participants using an iPhone...

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Pharma, Data Veteran Stephen Friend Bites At Apple’s Health Offer

Alex Lash | Xconomy | June 23, 2016

Consumer tech giant Apple, which has spent considerable effort positioning its products as health and fitness helpers, has just hired someone who knows Big Pharma and Big Data. Stephen Friend, a veteran of drug R&D and, more recently, a nonprofit effort to foster more collaborative biomedical research and more data sharing, is joining Apple in an unspecified capacity. The news emerged today from Sage Bionetworks, the Seattle nonprofit that Friend founded after leaving drug giant Merck, where he was a senior research executive for eight years...

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Sage Bionetworks Releases First-of-its-Kind Data from Parkinson’s iPhone Study

Press Release | Sage Bionetworks, mPower | March 3, 2016

Sage Bionetworks, a nonprofit biomedical research organization, today released an unparalleled dataset that captures the everyday experiences of more than 9,500 people to help speed scientific progress toward treatments for people with Parkinson’s disease. The dataset, which consists of millions of data points collected on a nearly-continuous basis through the iPhone app mPower, will provide researchers with unprecedented insight into the daily changes in symptoms and effects of medication for people with Parkinson’s.

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Yes, You Can Reconcile The Wide Sharing Of Personal Medical Research Data With Greater Participant Control

Glynn Moody | TechDirt | March 15, 2016

Although the benefits of sharing big datasets are well-known, so are the privacy issues that can arise as a result. The tension between a desire to share information widely and the need to respect the wishes of those to whom it refers is probably most acute in the medical world. Although the hope is that aggregating health data on a large scale can provide new insights into diseases and their treatments, doing so makes issues of consent even trickier to deal with. A new study of Parkinson's disease from Sage Bionetworks, which describes itself as a "non-profit biomedical research organization," takes a particularly interesting approach. Unusually, it used an iPhone app to gather data directly from the participants...

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