The opening meeting of around 40 experts, who met for the first time today in the Audimax on the Lübeck campus, focused on machine learning processes (so-called AI techniques), medical data and the challenges of maintaining the anonymity of the patients behind these data volumes. Minister Dirk Schrödter, head of the Schleswig-Holstein State Chancellery, also traveled from Kiel for this event. AnoMed is one of five nationwide anonymization competence clusters and is being funded by the BMBF as a joint project with a total of 10 million euros. Around 5.5 million euros of the funding will go directly to the University of Lübeck for research purposes.
Prof. Dr. Gabriele Gillessen-Kaesbach, President of the University of Lübeck, opened the inaugural meeting of the AnoMed Cluster in Lübeck: "In recent years, we have built up competencies in the areas of IT security, medical informatics and machine learning methods. The federal government's trust in the AnoMed Competence Center shows that this strategy has paid off."
AnoMed is intended to show medical users the dangers of deanonymization and the possibilities of the latest anonymization techniques. For this purpose, new types of anonymization processes are being developed and a benchmark and test platform with a range of medical application scenarios is being set up on which stakeholders worldwide can interact with medical data and the latest results of anonymization research, i.e. both protective mechanisms and attacks. Channeling anonymization research towards medical applications is important and requires new approaches, says Prof. Dr. Esfandiar Mohammadi from the Privacy & Security working group at the Institute for IT Security at the University of Lübeck and scientific director of the AnoMed cluster: "Advances in the field of IT security and machine learning give us new opportunities for strong anonymization solutions to protect personal data. This opens up new fields of application in digitized and personalized nutrition, medicine and healthcare."
As part of AnoMed, primarily publicly available data sets will be used to identify risks. This will enable users to better assess in which application contexts these procedures are actually still sufficient and in which situations more reliable procedures and definitions are required. These considerations are also important for the state data strategy in Schleswig-Holstein. Digitization Minister Dirk Schrödter said: “We have a firm goal in mind of significantly improving data availability. AI applications in particular depend on it, and health data is an extremely valuable commodity for research, practice and development in medical technology. We can no longer leave data lying unused in data silos. If the personal information behind it is well protected, even more people will make their health data available because trust will grow. More data ultimately means more opportunities to improve and individualize therapies. We therefore want research and development in our country to be at the cutting edge of data security and anonymization. The Competence Center for Anonymity is the perfect institution for this.” The minister welcomed the fact that science and the Independent State Institute for Data Protection are working closely together on this project.
The aim of the cluster is to design novel attacks and initial anonymization solutions and to investigate legal anonymization issues. It also ensures that the potential for innovation and new treatment methods made possible by reliable anonymization techniques are brought to medicine and the medical technology industry, thus promoting health and economic growth in Germany and the EEA. Lübeck offers a locational advantage through its existing networking of research in the fields of medicine, AI and medical technology. "The availability of large amounts of data is essential for the use of AI in medicine. The ability to completely anonymize data creates the basis for widespread use. Accordingly, AnoMed forms a crucial piece of the mosaic of the University of Lübeck's AI strategy," explains Prof. Dr. Stefan Fischer, Vice President for Digital and Transfer at the University of Lübeck.
The consortium for this novel project in the field of basic research consists of the Independent State Center for Data Protection, EppData GbmH, Perfood GmbH, UniTransferKlinik Lübeck GmbH, the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence, the University of Hamburg, the University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein, the Fraunhofer IMTE and the University of Lübeck, which is leading the project.
Contact for inquiries:
Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Esfandiar Mohammadi
Scientific Director of the Competence Cluster
University of Lübeck
Ratzeburger Allee 160
23562 Lubeck
Email: esfandiar.mohammadi@uni-luebeck.de
Tel: +49 451 3101 6609
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