PD:Medicina de Sistemes

Teaching plan for the course unit

General information

Course unit name: Systems Medicine

Course unit code: 571527

Academic year: 2021-2022

Coordinator: Jose Roca Torrent

Department: Faculty of Medicine

Credits: 6

Single program: S

Estimated learning time

Total number of hours 150

Face-to-face and/or online activities

	- Lecture	Face-to-face		24
	- Practical exercises	Online		26

Supervised project

Independent learning

Recommendations

Classes and material will be in English.

Selected material and exercises will be distributed online from November 2019 to end-of-May 2020, as indicated above.

Competences to be gained during study

Systems Medicineis proposing an innovative approach to our understanding of disease mechanisms that is contributing to build-up personalized medicine with important implications on healthcare strategies.

Within the Clinical Research Master, the subject will focus on strategies for deployment of systems medicine in the clinical scenario. We will identify the core components of such a deployment, share our own experience and provide skills to the students fostering future contributions into the field.

Learning objectives

Referring to knowledge

- Have a general knowledge on the added value of a Systems Medicine approach to biomedical research and healthcare by addressing its main components through the study of successful experiences at local and international level.

- Understand applicability of Systems Biology methodologies in the field of biomedical research and clinical practice. The student should understand the need for integration of information from different biological levels: molecular, cellular, organ and apparatus. But also integration of biological information with clinical, behavioral, life style, environmental and epidemiological data for the proper understanding and resolution of health problems.

- Understand how the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and how mathematical modelling allows exploring the emergent properties of biological systems to improve knowledge of: (i) disease mechanisms, (ii) diagnostic procedures, (iii) treatment strategies, (iv) prognosis of disease and (v) determinants of disease associations (multi-morbidities).

- Share on-going progresses toward personalized medicine within an integrated care scenario, as it is formulated by the current European research program Horizon-2020

Teaching blocks

1. Introduction to Systems Medicine, Integrated Care and Implementation Science

1.1. Systems Medicine: a core subject of MRC

1.2. A systems approach to patients with COPD: underlying mechanisms and implications in management

1.3. Introduction to Integrated Care, current status in Europe and convergence with Systems Medicine

1.4. Impact of digital health transformation on Integrated Care

2. Introduction to Digital Health and Learning Healthcare Systems

2.1. Digital Health and Learning Healthcare Systems to support the interplay between healthcare Informal care and biomedical research

2.2. Roadmap for deployment of Digital Health and Learning Healthcare Systems at Catalan level

2.3. Critical factors for deployment of Systems Medicine and Integrated Care

2.4. Systems medicine approaches for the development of malaria vaccines

3. Introduction to Network Analysis, advanced modelling techniques and review of critical factors for deployment of Systems Medicine and Integrated Care

3.1. Computational Challenges of Personalised Medicine

3.2. Introduction to Network analysis

3.3. Advanced modeling for problem solving: Bayesian networks & deep learning

3.4. Lung function in early adulthood and health in later life

3.5. Mechanistic modelling of the Oxygen transport and utilization pathway

3.6. Decision support tools for patients and clinicians

3.7. Systemic inflammation in schizophrenia: brain axis in neurodevelopmental disorders

3.8. Enrichment analysis in metabolomics data

4. Predictive modelling and ICT tools fostering digital transformation and personalized care

4.1. Mathematical modelling in healthcare, an example in anesthesia: from patient to business

4.2. Health solutions to facilitate remote access to health care providers and increase adherence for people living with HIV

4.3. Entrepreneurship in the health sector – Relationships with research and innovation

5. Systems Medicine for Personalized Cancer Therapies

5.1. Biological drugs-biosimilars

5.2. Personalized medicine for breast cancer

5.3. Epigenetics of cancer

5.4. Surrogate markers of response in HIV therapeutic Vaccine

6. Digital transformation in health and care

6.1. Health research and innovation cloud (HRIC): European perspective

6.2. Artificial intelligence applied to health: practical cases

6.3. UE instruments promoting research and innovation

Teaching methods and general organization

The duration of the course on Systems Medicine is approximately 6 m, from 15 November 2021 to the end of May 2022.

The subject begins with the introductory session (Session 1, from 09:00 am to 01:00 pm) on Friday 19 November 2021. It will be followed by similar sessions on:

26^thNovember 2021 (Session 2)

3rd,10^thand 17^thDecember 2019 (Session 3-5)

14^thand 21^thJanuary 2021 (Sessions 6-7)

The program of the sessions will be displayed in the virtual space.

Lectures will be available on-line within one week after each session. Evaluation of lectures by the students and answers to the multiple choice questions relative to each lecture will be required within a 2.5-month time frame, from December 2021 to mid-February 2022.

From March to end of May 2022 key references and on-line working material will be displayed in the web every month (a total of three blocks) with accompanying exercises to be completed by the students.

Official assessment of learning outcomes

Continuous evaluation of the students will be done through exercises, as indicated.

A short project (2 pages) on a topic selected by the student will be prepared and delivered for evaluation by end-of-May 2021.

On-line evaluation of the quality of the sessions (both face to face and web material) by the students is strongly encouraged.

Reading and study resources

Check availability in Cercabib

Article

Coughlin SS. Toward a road map for global -omics: a primer on -omic technologies. Am J Epidemiol 2014;180:1188–95. doi:10.1093/aje/kwu262

Maddox TM, Albert NM, Borden WB, et al. The Learning Healthcare System and Cardiovascular Care: A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association. Circulation 2017;135(14):e826-e857

Medicine in the digital age. Nature focus editorial 2019.

Topol EJ. High-performance medicine: the convergence of human and artificial intelligence. Nat Med. 2019

Topol EJ. Preparing the healthcare workforce to deliver the digital future. NHS. February 2019.