The European Union finances AI tools for personalizing the treatment of cardiovascular diseases.

The NextGen project combines genomic data, cardiac imaging, and the clinical history of patients into an interoperable and secure system. The goal is to develop artificial intelligence models that support the prevention, diagnosis, and personalized treatment of cardiovascular diseases in Europe.

The European NextGen project develops digital tools that integrate genomic and clinical data into artificial intelligence systems to personalize the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of cardiovascular diseases.

In short, NextGen is an EU-funded project launched in 2024, aiming to integrate genomic and clinical data into personalized cardiovascular medicine.

The project addresses the fragmentation of medical data, where genomic sequences, cardiac imaging, and clinical history are stored in separate systems.

The consortium is developing an interoperable and secure digital infrastructure for training cardiovascular AI models.

The NextGen tools aim to use data between hospitals and countries without losing the clinical context and without exposing sensitive patient information.

The project has pilot programs in five collaborating clinical centers to test the tools in real conditions.

Cardiovascular diseases remain the leading cause of death globally, yet many treatments continue to be applied according to standardized models. The NextGen project aims to change this approach by combining multiple types of medical data into advanced artificial intelligence systems.

NextGen, an acronym for NEXT GENERATION TOOLS FOR GENOME-CENTRIC MULTIMODAL DATA INTEGRATION IN PERSONALIZED CARDIOVASCULAR MEDICINE, was launched in 2024 and aims to transform the way heart diseases are prevented, diagnosed, and treated.

The central issue addressed by the project is data fragmentation. Critical information about patients is often separated: genomic sequences in one database, cardiac imaging in another, and clinical history in yet another system.

To this fragmentation are added strict rules regarding confidentiality and incompatible data formats. These obstacles hinder the construction of complete patient profiles and limit the use of data for personalized medical decisions.

The NextGen consortium is developing tools aimed at eliminating these barriers. The goal is to create an interoperable environment where different types of data can be used together, under secure conditions, for clinical decisions better tailored to each patient.

The central element of the project is a digital infrastructure that combines genomic data, cardiac imaging, and clinical files into a single interoperable system. This secure and quality database is necessary for training robust AI models in the cardiovascular field.

Professor Steffen Petersen from Queen Mary University of London, a partner in the NextGen project, explained the role of multimodal data in medical practice.

"Clinicians rely on a wide range of clinical information to diagnose disease, predict risk, guide treatment, and monitor outcomes. However, data science in health has not yet fully captured the power of multimodal data, such as symptoms, signs, electrocardiograms, blood tests, and imaging. Bringing these data together is essential for advancing data-driven innovation in health, and NEXTGEN represents a major step forward," Petersen said.

The NextGen tools will ensure that medical data remain useful and intelligible in hospital systems and different countries, without losing the initial clinical context. Interoperability is important for European health systems, which are becoming increasingly connected.

The project also emphasizes data protection and governance. Researchers will be able to share and use relevant cardiovascular data sets without transferring or exposing sensitive patient information.

The consortium is working on standards for data reuse and for privacy protection. The objective is to maintain patient trust as digital health technologies expand.

NextGen integrates ethical constraints directly into the system, through protection mechanisms designed to ensure the responsible use of data. The project also aims for greater patient control over their own information.

Several pilot programs are already underway. These involve five collaborating clinical centers, organized into a dedicated network.

The pilot programs will test the effectiveness of the NextGen tools and their potential for delivering personalized medicine in Europe. The results are relevant both for cardiology and for the broader debate on the use of artificial intelligence in health.

Personalized medicine aims to adapt prevention, diagnosis, and treatment to the characteristics of each patient. In cardiovascular diseases, this can mean combining genomic data with imaging, medical history, blood tests, and other clinical information.

At the European level, the use of artificial intelligence in health depends on the ability of medical systems to work with interoperable, secure, and comparable data across countries. At the same time, the protection of patient data remains a central condition for any use of these technologies.

The NextGen project is part of European research and innovation efforts for digital health, artificial intelligence, and personalized medicine. Testing in collaborating clinical centers will show to what extent these tools can be used in real conditions in European health systems.

https://2eu.brussels/ro/stiri/uniunea-europeana-finanteaza-instrumente-ai-pentru-personalizarea-tratamentului-bolilor-cardiovasculare